Martin said, “Oh, I guess that before you are forced to have sex with an ebu gogo, I should give you some sort of explanation as to why it’s happening. All right then. I will tell you the story of the origin of the ebu gogo, and perhaps then you will understand.
“The ebu gogo have a song. This song is older than humanity, and reaches all the way back to the dawn of time. It has been transmitted orally by the ebu gogo from generation to generation, each generation adding its own story to the narrative, so that the song from beginning to end tells the complete and uninterrupted history of the ebu gogo. Not all ebu gogo know the entire song. Each individual ebu gogo is responsible for memorizing a portion of it, and the portion memorized by Lua happens to deal with the very beginnings of human evolution, and starts roughly two million years before the first human being was born.
“Of course, I am not going to tell you the story the way Lua sang it. First of all, you would not understand the language it is in, and second of all, it is a work of poetry, and we are all scientists. But when I heard the poetry of the song, because of my background as a college student majoring in genetic anthropology, I was able to make sense of it, and so I am going to not only translate the story from the ebu gogo language into English, but from a poetic understanding of the world into a scientific one. The ebu gogo have their own names for things, and I admit to guessing how certain things correspond to things known by science. When I refer to Homo erectus and the Neanderthal, I am only guessing based on what I know about human evolutionary history that these are the species that the ebu gogo sing about in their song.
“In our remote past, the entire world was covered by ice. But then in one part of the world, I am pretty sure the song means somewhere in Africa, the snow began to melt, and the earth there turned green. And within that green springtime, the apes, no longer having to worry themselves about keeping warm, began to talk.
“The apes in that newly thawed world could talk to themselves, and understand themselves, but they could not understand each other, and therefore could not talk to one another. Then, a few apes realized that just as they were talking to themselves, their fellow apes were talking to themselves too, and they began to speak with and understand each other.
“But, now that they could understand each other, they could also misunderstand each other. With the birth of communication also came the birth of conflict, and these talking no-longer-apes, which I take to be the species we call Homo habilis, fought bitterly with one another.
“There was one faction though that did not want to fight. This group left their homeland order to find a land where they could live peacefully, and eventually wound up in what I assume must be Southwestern Asia.
“This migration, however, took a long period of time, the song doesn’t specify exactly how long, but as it progressed the spines of the apes gradually began to straighten as the poor walkers were left behind and the good walkers continued forward, so that by the time they reached Southwestern Asia after many generations had gone by, they were walking upright. I interpret this to mean that the Homo habilis, during the course of their migration, evolved into the Homo erectus.
“As a side note, and this is not in the song, it’s just something I learned in school, did you know that the species Homo erectus lasted nine times as long as human beings have been around? I mention this only to illustrate the enormous amount of time covered in The Song of the Ebu Gogo.
“Anyway, the Homo erectus lived in Southwestern Asia in peace for thousands upon thousands of years until one day a new species in the genus of Homo, which I assume must be the Homo neanderthalensis, more popularly known as the Neanderthal, arrive in Southwestern Asia.
“While the Homo erectus were extreme pacifists, the Neanderthals were violent and warlike, and immediately began a campaign of extermination against the Homo erectus for no other reason than that the Homo erectus lived on the land and the Neanderthals wanted it all for themselves.
“This brings us to the first named character in the song, Asha, a Homo erectus woman. When she lived, it had been generations since the Neanderthals had first come to Southwestern Asia, and their campaign of extermination was all she knew. One day she peered from hidden safety at a plain below and her eyes narrowed into two wrathful slits as she watched the Neanderthals, with their spears, clubs, and stone knives, drive the Homo erectus to the center of the field and slaughter them. It made her so mad. The Homo erectus made tools, but they did not know how to make weapons. The Neanderthals did know how to make weapons, and it was her opinion that weapon making was the source of their superiority. The Homo erectus that were being attacked didn’t even fight back against the Neanderthals, because Homo erectus didn’t fight. But at any rate, she was sure that if the Homo erectus learned how to make weapons, they would retake the land.
“That night as the small Homo erectus tribe Asha was a part of slept in a circle on the forest floor, Asha heard a horrible scream and sat up with a jolt. She looked around with wide frightened eyes as a band of Neanderthals killed her sleeping tribe one by one. Some Neanderthals bashed the Homo erectus heads in with clubs. Others drove stone-tipped spears though their hearts and throats.
“A Neanderthal stood over Asha with a raised club. Another Neanderthal reached out and stopped the first Neanderthal’s hands. They spoke a bit in the Neanderthal language, which Asha did not understand. Asha didn’t know what they were laughing about or what their gestures meant, but she knew that as they spoke the rest of her tribe was being slaughtered.
“The second Neanderthal took the club from the first Neanderthal, grabbed Asha by her hair, and dragged her off. Asha kicked against the ground, and clawed at the Neanderthal’s hand. He released her hair and softly clubbed her over her head, not hard enough to bash her brains in, or even to knock her out, but just enough to daze her. He took her by her hair again and dragged her limp body across the forest to a small cave.
“Asha, although terrified, had not yet figured out what the Neanderthal wanted her for. It was so unthinkable, so outside the range of what was possible, that the truth did not occur to her until the Neanderthal grabbed the fern leaf fashioned around her hips and ripped it off with a violent tug. Her eyes widened with horror as she realized that something which had never happened before in the history of the world was now happening to her. She was having sexual intercourse with another species.
“The Neanderthal finished and left and Asha stumbled out of the cave. Her tribe was dead, and the only future she saw for herself was death. But, she was soon surprised to learn that she was with child. She had not thought such a thing was possible. Three moons later she gave birth, alone in the cave where it was conceived, to the first Neanderthal-Homo erectus hybrid.
“Asha held her newborn baby in her arms, but there was none of the awe of the new mother in her face. There was nothing but determination. She had found her weapon.
“Shortly after giving birth Asha searched out other tribes of Homo erectus, showed them her baby, and gave instructions to any young women who would listen.
“Many years later Asha sat on a small hill at one end of a green, flowery field, her youngest half Neanderthal daughter standing at her side with a bulging belly of her own.
“Down in the field below, Homo erectus women frolicked playfully among Neanderthal men with clubs. Early on Asha had realized that Neanderthal men liked a little chase, so she instructed the Homo erectus women to elude them a bit. The Homo erectus women had also learned that certain things, such as putting the scent of flowers upon themselves, painting their lips red and their cheeks pink, tying their hair up, and wearing their leaves in a way that accentuated certain parts of their bodies, made the Neanderthal men chase them harder.