Descent by Kropotkin38

Thank you very much for the cherry pick. I really enjoyed writing this and had a lot of belief in the story as I wrote it. The sacred worries me quite a lot too, and I suppose that's why it's interesting. The inspiration was not Native American but I am not at all upset by the association.

I was thinking about what I might write about this week and settled on having a go at three stories about pre-modern societies. The first was inspired by the phenomenon of cargo cults and the second, The Descent - sorry about the shocking lack of editing by the way - was inspired by the caves at Niaux in The Pyrenees where cave paintings from the Magdelenien people survive in amazing condition. Some of them are perhaps 30,000 years old. Nobody really knows why they were painted although I strongly suspect they that served a magical purpose. The painters certainly did not live in the caves and seem to have gone there only in order to paint. Anyway, they are an amazing testament to human creativity and skill. I chose to name the main character in a fashion reminiscent of English translations of Native American names, just as I used this device in The God of the Reef, because it seems more appropriate to me than inventing a phonetic name and it is not unusual for people to draw names from the things in the world around them. I am not at all worried by the association with a Native American milieu because I understand that there are clear parallels between many animistic/shamanistic belief systems. I imagine that the Magdelenien cave painters would have appeared much more comprehensible to Native Americans at any time in the last 12,000 years than did the Europeans who turned up in the Western hemisphere 500 years ago. There remains the most difficult of the three "primitive" stories to write. I'll see if I can write something worth posting here.

Double post. Aaaargh!

You are welcome.

Thanks JX, I am glad you enjoyed the story. I want you to know that I have thought quite hard about how to respond to the "edit". My first response was to feel a little queasy; I thought I might be forced to be rude. On reflection I can see that you were making a generous gesture. Still,I have a couple of problems with this approach of yours: firstly one person's grammatical "errors" might well be seen as another's unique style; secondly you did not ask me whether I wanted a new and "improved" version of my work brought into existence. I admit that I did not edit the story very well before posting it, but I did think quite carefully about the style of my language as I was writing it. If there were issues about lack of clarity then I would have welcomed a few comments and suggestions, but if we all wrote in the style of JX for example, what a monotone world it would be. I would have found it much more useful I think, to discuss some points of language with you rather than being presented with the fait accompli of a complete re-write. If you enjoy my work in the future, but have similar issues I hope you will adopt this more gentle, one might almost say less invasive approach. Anyway, I am calm now. I really do appreciate your interest and I hope you don't take offence at my response. I do appreciate that if I submitted a story for publication it would in all likelihood be thoroughly edited, but that would be a relationship freely entered into on my part.

Yep, it's probably not what's called for: a complete rewrite, I mean. A generous use of one's time nonetheless. But, you know, (and please don't take offence JXM) a little presumptuous? A discussion of reasons for style choices and possible areas of ambiguity might have been more welcome I think. Calm now Kropotkinschik? I wish you'd written an angry riposte! You could always have disclaimed it as heat of the moment stuff. (That's what I'd have done, I admit :-))

I came very close, but I couldn't be sure whether my anger was about this or just the whole giving up - no trying to give up - smoking thing or not. I thought better of going nuclear and slept on it. :)