The Acorn-Planter. Джек Лондон

Acorn-Planter / A California Forest Play (1916)

      ARGUMENT

           In the morning of the world, while his tribe

           makes its camp for the night in a grove, Red

           Cloud, the first man of men, and the first man

           of the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the duty

           of life, which duty is to make life more abundant.

           The Shaman, or medicine man, sings of

           foreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, who

           commands in war, sings that war is the only

           way to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirming

           that the way of life is the way of the acorn-

           planter, and that whoso slays one man slays

           the planter of many acorns. Red Cloud wins

           the Shaman and the people to his contention.

           After the passage of thousands of years, again

           in the grove appear the Nishinam. In Red

           Cloud, the War Chief, the Shaman, and the

           Dew-Woman are repeated the eternal figures

           of the philosopher, the soldier, the priest, and

           the woman—types ever realizing themselves

           afresh in the social adventures of man. Red

           Cloud recognizes the wrecked explorers as

           planters and life-makers, and is for treating

           them with kindness. But the War Chief and

           the idea of war are dominant The Shaman

           joins with the war party, and is privy to the

           massacre of the explorers.

           A hundred years pass, when, on their seasonal

           migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in

           the grove. They still live, and the war formula

           for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence

           of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are

           flooding into California from north, south, east,

           and west—the English, the Americans, the

           Spaniards, and the Russians. The massacre by

           the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying,

           recognizes the white men as brother acorn-planters,

           the possessors of the superior life-formula

           of which he had always been a protagonist.

           In the Epilogue, or Apotheosis, occur the

           celebration of the death of war and the triumph

           of the acorn-planters.

      PROLOGUE

           Time. In the morning of the world.

           Scene. A forest hillside where great trees stand with wide

           spaces between. A stream flows from a spring that bursts

           out of the hillside. It is a place of lush ferns and brakes,

           also, of thickets of such shrubs as inhabit a redwood forest

           floor. At the left, in the open level space at the foot of the

           hillside, extending out of sight among the trees, is visible a

           portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary

           camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing

           about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies

           and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie

           about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young

           women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed

           about their camp tasks. A number of older women are

           pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An

           old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the

           hillside. All wear moccasins and are skin-clad, primitive,

           in their garmenting. Neither iron nor woven cloth occurs

           in the weapons and gear.

      ACT I

           Shaman     (Looking up hillside.)     Red Cloud is late.

           Old Man     (After inspection of hillside.)     He has chased the deer far. He is patient.

           In the chase he is patient like an old man.

           Shaman     His feet are as fleet as the deer's.

           Old Man     (Nodding.)     And he is more patient than the deer.

           Shaman     (Assertively, as if inculcating a lesson.)     He is a mighty chief.

           Old Man     (Nodding.)     His father was a mighty chief. He is like to

           his father.

           Shaman     (More assertively.)     He is his father. It is so spoken. He is

           his father's father. He is the first man, the

           first Red Cloud, ever born, and born again, to

           chiefship of his people.

           Old Man     It is so spoken.

           Shaman     His father was the Coyote. His mother was

           the Moon. And he was the first man.

           Old Man     (Repeating.)     His father was the Coyote. His mother was

           the Moon. And he was the first man.

           Shaman     He planted the first acorns, and he is very

           wise.

           Old Man     (Repeating.)     He planted the first acorns, and he is very

           wise.

           (Cries from the women and a turning of

           faces. Red Cloud appears among his

           hunters descending the hillside. All

           carry spears, and bows and arrows.

           Some carry rabbits and other small

           game. Several carry deer)

           PLAINT OF THE NISHINAM

           Red Cloud, the meat-bringer!

           Red Cloud, the acorn-planter!

           Red Cloud, first man of the Nishinam!