Tig becomes a Man

BEFORE nightfall Berog came back with some of the men carrying torches and poles. They tied the stag’s hind legs and its fore legs together, and thrust a pole through, and so carried it home, and Tig and Berog marched behind. And when they reached the village, all the people turned out to cheer them. And on the next day Gofa and some of the women skinned the deer and cut up the meat. Every part of the deer’s body they kept for some use or other—the meat for food, the hide for making into leather, the bones to be broken for marrow and some to be carved into tools, the brains for greasing and curing the hide, the sinews to be dried and shredded into thread; and the antlers Gofa gave to Tig, because he had won them. And though before that day Tig would have had to wait on the women while they were cutting up the stag, and run errands for them, yet now he did not. He lay outside the hut all day, and ate his meals when they were brought to him, and behaved just like any of the men of the village.

For, after this first big hunt on his own account, Tig reckoned himself a boy no longer. And soon after this, he became a man, according to the custom of his tribe. That is to say, the Medicine Men, who were the rulers of the people in all matters of custom and religion, took him in hand to make a man of him. By their orders he fasted several days, and kept apart from the people, that he might learn the will of the gods. Then the Medicine Men took him and some other boys of his age, and led them into a grove where they said the gods dwelt; and they taught the boys the names of the gods and how to call upon them. And they tried each boy’s courage, and bade him remember always to be brave and endure pain without flinching; and they said that to be a coward is worse than death, and that it is better to die than to give in or run away.

After this Garff gave Tig a man’s weapons—a battle-axe and a dagger of flint, and a shield such as men used in warfare; and Tig went also to an old man of the village who was clever at tattooing, and he tattooed Tig on his shoulders and chest and arms; and after that Tig felt that he was really a man.