'Yes. Of course. The important thing is to know when it's the appropriate moment, though. Ah, this one's Ug,' said Rincewind, as a white-haired man prodded him with a thick finger. 'So are all the others.'
The current Ug pointed towards the Shell Midden foothills.
'He appears to want us to go with him,' said Ponder.
'He might,' said Rincewind. 'Or he might be pointing out where he last had a really satisfying bowel movement. See them all watching us?'
'Yes.'
'See that strange expression they have?'
'Yes.'
'You wonder what they're thinking?'
'Yes.'
'Nothing. Believe me. That expression means that they're waiting for the next thought to turn up.'
Beyond the Shell Midden Mountains was a thicket of willows, and in the centre of the thicket was a much older tree, or what remained of one. It had been split in two, was now dead, and at some point had been burned.
The clan hung back, but the white-haired Ug followed them into it a little way.
Something crackled under Rincewind's foot. He looked down, saw a yellowing bone, and nearly experienced an appropriate moment. Then he spotted the faint hummocks around the clearing, many of them overgrown.
'And here's the tree that fire came from,' said Ridcully, who had noticed them as well. 'Sacred ground, gentlemen. And they bury their dead.'
'Not exactly buried,' said Rincewind. 'More just left, I think you'll find. I think they just want to show me where they got fire.'
Ridcully reached for his pipe.
'These people really don't make it?' he said.
'They didn't understand the question,' said Rincewind. 'Well, I say question ... they didn't understand what I hope was the question. We're not talking progressive thinkers here. It must have been a big step when they invented the idea of taking the skins off animals before wearing them. I've never met any people quite so ... well, dull. I can't work them out. They're not exactly stupid, but their idea of repartee is an answer within ten minutes.'
'Well, this'll buck their ideas up,' said Ridcully, and lit his pipe. T expect they'll be impressed!'
The Ugs looked at one another. They watched the Archchancellor blowing smoke. And then they attacked.
On the Discworld the only tribe known to have absolutely no imaginations whatsoever are the N'tuiftif, although they are gifted with great powers of observation and deduction. They just never invent anything. They were the first tribe ever to borrow fire. Being surrounded by other tribes who were as imaginative as anything, they are also very good at hiding; when you are surrounded by tribes to whom a stick means club, prod, lever, world domination, you are at a natural disadvantages when, to you, a stick means 'stick'.
To someone else a stick currently meant 'pole'.
A figure vaulted across the clearing and landed in front of the Ugs.
Orangutans do not enter the boxing ring, being too intelligent. If they did, however, the fact that they could knock out the opponent without getting up off their stool would quite make up for lack of finesse in the footwork.
Most of the tribe turned to run, and would have come face to face with the Luggage if it had a face. They rocked when it butted them, and tried to wonder what it was. And by then the Librarian was on top of them.
Those that worked out this was a good time to flee, fled. Those that didn't, stayed on the ground where they had been put.
The astonished Archchancellor was still holding the burning match when the Librarian advanced on him, screaming loudly.
'What say?' he said.
'There's a lot about him being in a library and the next minute being in the river over there,'
Ponder supplied. 'That all? Sounded more.' 'The rest was swearing, sir.' 'Apes swear?' 'Yes, sir.
All the time.'
There was another burst from the Librarian, accompanied by a pounding of knuckles on the ground. 'More swearing?' said Ridcully.
'Oh yes, sir. He's really quite upset. Hex has told him there are no longer any libraries whatsoever at any point in the planet's history.'
'Ow!'
'Quite, sir.'
'I burned my fingers!' Ridcully sucked his thumb. 'Where is Hex, anyway?'
'I was just wondering that, sir. After all, the crystal ball belonged in the city which isn't here any more ...'
They turned and looked at the tree.
It must have blazed furiously when the lightning struck. Probably it had been dead and dry anyway. There were only a few stumps of branches. The whole thing was black, and strangely ominous against the green of the willows.
Rincewind was sitting at the top.
'What the hell are you doing up there, man?' Ridcully bellowed.
'I can't run across water, sir,' Rincewind called down. 'And ... I think I've found Hex. This tree talks ..."
EDGE PEOPLE
Rincewind's 'edge people' are a caricature of early hominids, and quite close to what anthropologists used to think Neanderthals were like. We now think that Neanderthals had a bit more going for them, quite apart from burying their dead. At least, it suits the mood of the times to desire to think that they did have something happening behind that big brow-ridge. A bone with holes in it, which some archaeologists believe to be a 43,000-year-old Neanderthal bone flute, has been found in Slovenia. But others dispute that it is a musical instrument. Francesco d'Errico and Philip Chase have studied the bone carefully, and they are certain that the holes were gnawed in it by animals, not bored by a musically minded Neanderthal. We do not know if it's been handed to a musician ...
Whatever the status of the flute, it is clear that Neanderthal culture didn't change significantly over long periods of time. The culture that led to us did. It changed dramatically, and so far it's never stopped. What made us so different from the Neanderthals?
According to the Out of Africa theory, our ancestors, and everybody else's, came from an original population that evolved in Africa. They migrated through the Middle East; the ones bound for Australia probably left from South Africa, but might have gone round through the Far East and Malaysia. If you've got boats, you can do either.
In principle the immune-gene story that we discussed in Chapter 10 could tell us more, but nobody's yet done the research: either the Australian 'aborigines' have the same gene spectrum as the rest of us post-bottleneck humans, or they have their own small and characteristic selection instead. Whichever is the case, it will tell us something interesting, but until someone gathers the genetic data, we have no idea which interesting thing it will tell us. A lot of science is like that, a win-win situation. But try explaining that to the bean-counters who control research funding.
When we speak of 'migrations' in this context, you shouldn't think of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It wasn't a case of one group of humans taking forty years or whatever and conquering other hominids along the way. It was more likely the successive formation of small settlements, slowly getting further and further away from the original homeland. The people themselves didn't even know that they were migrating. It was just 'Hey, Alan, why don't you and Marilyn settle down to hunter-gathering a couple of valleys over, by that nice Euphrates river?'
Then, after a hundred years, there would be a few settlements on the far side of the river, too.
This isn't pure speculation: archaeologists have found some of the settlements.
If humans formed new settlements a mile away every ten years, it would take only 50,000 years, a mere 1,000 grandfathers, for them to diffuse from Africa all the way to the frozen north. And they surely diffused faster than that. Hardly anybody actually went anywhere; it was just that the kids set up home a few hundred yards along the track, where there was a bit more room to bring up their kids.
As we diffused, we diversified. It is impressive how diverse we are, physically and culturally.