Apostate

[Preface: The elaborate and massive megalithic complex at in southern Turkey turned the accepted story of the Mesolithic to Neolithic upside down when they were discovered in 1995. Archaeologists and historians formerly presumed farming and pastoralism preceded the construction of large structures because the work force needed to be fed. Yet Gobekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers 12,000 years ago: construction might have sparked farming rather than the other way around. Along with other foundations, the complex contains stones are over 6 meters tall and weighing more than 20 tons in circular stone structures that apparently are temples; whether or not they were roofed is debated. For unknown reasons the site was deliberately filled in and abandoned.] 

Pride welled in Saiga in spite of herself as she approached the knoll dominating the windswept plateau. The complexity and scale of the structures on the site were unlike anything else in the known world. Her own ancestors had organized the construction of the temples, halls, and warehouses. New methods of quarrying and leverage on a grand scale had been invented for the task. The challenge of feeding the workforces in a land increasingly picked clean of game and grain had been faced and met by long-distance sourcing and increasingly successful attempts to breed milder Aurochs, boars, and mouflon that could be kept instead of hunted wild. Warehouses stored nuts and grains for the future and some fields were deliberately set aside for grain-bearing grasses for animal grazing and beer-making. She had come to regard the whole project as a crime against nature, but it was a splendid crime.

The temples were concentric stone walls containing towering stones carved in the symbols of bands and clans of the Peoples. The Peoples were all the tribes, bands, and clans who recognized the Grand Shaman. They participated in the Great Gatherings at the equinoxes and solstices. The outer rings each temples was roofed but the centers were left open to the sky, thereby enhancing the experience of the Mysteries. The Mysteries gave the Peoples a broader sense of identity than in past times. They once had warred constantly, but now the Grand Shaman was able to mediate most disputes among them peaceably. The barbarian heathen outsiders, of course, remained fair game. The internal peace crowded the lands of the Peoples  as the natural life of nomads gave way to permanent settlements.

Saiga’s father was the current Grand Shaman. He had been chosen by her mother, the daughter of the previous Shaman. Rights to land, including this site, passed through women, as they did among the barbarians. Saiga in turn should choose the next Shaman, perhaps marrying him, perhaps not. But events had taken an improper turn.

The dogs picking at the bones left on the campgrounds ignored Saiga. The clans always left detritus behind after Grand Gatherings, but dogs, birds, and other scavengers always cleaned up before a moon cycle was complete. Jerboa waited for her by the entrance to the Grand Temple. Jerboa had married her father a year ago, scarcely two years after Saiga’s mother died. Jerboa was the improper turn of events that threatened the succession.

“I need to see my father,” said Saiga coolly.

“Is that the first thing you have to say? I haven’t seen you in months. We feared you were dead.”

“Feared or hoped?”

“Be pleasant, and I’m well, thank you for asking. Where are Marten and Lynx?” asked Jerboa.

Marten and Lynx were traveling companions from the temple staff. When Saiga’s father could not dissuade her from her journey, he had insisted she bring them along as guards. She hadn’t objected. Both young men had ambitions to be Grand Shaman one day and therefore were eager to ingratiate themselves with her. They accordingly were easy to manipulate.

“They remained among the Sparrowhawks until we get back.”

“Sparrowhawks are what the people you recruited call themselves, I presume. So you left Marten and Lynx as hostages with barbarians.”

“I left them as guests of a people seeking our enlightenment. Both agreed to stay when I asked them.”

“I imagine they did.”

“It’s a normal precaution for the Sparrowhawks to take, after all. They don’t know us and have no reason to trust us. Their only contact with any of the Peoples until now has been war,” said Saiga.

“We received word of your approach from runners. Why do only young men accompany you?” asked Jerboa.

“As I said, they have no reason to trust us. You don’t expect them to bring their families into potentially hostile territory on their first visit.”

“But who are these people? You didn’t go to the northern shore where you said you were going.”

“No, I didn’t. That was my precaution. I need to see my father.”

Jerboa sighed. “Go on in. He is in the grand circle.”

She entered the structure and wound her way through the interior. Even without the rituals of the Mysteries, Saiga could feel the power of the architecture and carvings. During the Mysteries, initiates intoxicated with beer, mushrooms, herbs, and the smoke of special plants navigated this interior maze to the sounds of drums and chants by flickering torchlight. They emerged into the open sky in the center amid towering slabs of stones that reached up to the heavens like giant men. The Grand Shaman would anoint them and explain the symbolism of their simulated death and rebirth and the promise of the sky: an afterlife of bliss or pain governed, as this life, by sky gods. Peoples versed in the Mysteries regarded the typical beliefs of outsiders in irascible earthy spirits with no moral code as foolish superstition.

She found the Shaman in the center as Jerboa had said. He was checking the straps on a ladder that led up to the roof.

“Hello father,” said Saiga.

“Saiga! I’m pleased and relieved you are back.” A hint of motion betrayed the Shaman’s desire to give Saiga a hug, but he refrained.

“You are one of the few, I think,” said Saiga. “Why the ladder? Are you making roof repairs?”

“Yes, but I’m also considering altering the Mystery. Instead of returning initiates back the way they came, leading them out over the roof might better represent the ascent to the afterlife.”

Saiga looked up at the open sky, which continued to darken as dusk edged toward night.

“I see. That seems contrived if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I don’t mind, and I tend to agree now that I look at it. Tell me about your adventure! Where did you go? Who are these people you led here?” asked the Shaman.

“They call themselves Sparrowhawks. They are from the eastern mountains beyond the last settlements. It is where I knew there still were people who live as nature intended.”

“I don’t think nature intends anything. You are verging on heresy daughter.”

“Only verging? The Sparrowhawks still live like humans. They move with game and the seasons without walling themselves in dirt and rocks. They revere the earth mother. They make figurines of her. They hunt game and they collect what earth provides.”

“As we all do,” said the Shaman.

“Do we? Is that what we are doing? We dishonor the game we herd. We dishonor people like Sparrowhawks, calling them savages. We call them evil for not following our doctrines. They don’t understand the word evil.  They raid neighbors without disrespecting them.”

“By which you mean they raid and kill their neighbors mindlessly.”

“Not mindlessly: for loot, mates, and sport.”

“You approve of this?”

 “I approve of them acting without hatred. Sparrowhawks do not justify themselves with some made-up philosophy. They do not hate their enemies. They have taught me that much,” said Saiga. “They don’t know the word ‘heresy’ either.”

“Saiga, we have brought peace throughout the region of the Peoples”

“We haven’t brought peace. We’ve made war more malicious – and directed it mostly against people like the Sparrowhawks.”

“They are welcome to experience the Mysteries and join the Peoples. Isn’t that why you have led them here?”

“I had serious doubts about it.”

“Did you? Yet here you are, so I can’t be angry with you. I think this outburst of yours is really about Jerboa,” he said.

“The succession should be my choice! Jerboa will usurp my rights in favor of her daughter.”

“She hasn’t a daughter. We haven’t one.”

“She will.”

“As the gods will. But she can usurp no rights while you live.”

“Which is why I traveled somewhere beyond her range of influence.”

“You do her injustice with your suspicions.”

“I don’t think so.”

Dusk had crossed the boundary to night. Her father transitioned to a silhouette. Saiga once again felt the power of the place. She couldn’t allow another people to be corrupted by it.

“Since you bring new initiates with you,” said her father, “I’ll let your heresy pass. They missed the Great Mystery at the equinox, but we can initiate them anyway with a special Little Mystery. It was wise to give me a day to prepare. The solstice is only a few moons away, and they can return then for trade and spouses with the rest of the Peoples.”

Saiga smelled smoke. She looked up and could see stars visible overhead. The air filled with shouts. A scream that Saiga recognized as Jerboa’s was cut short.

“Saiga, what have you done?”

“Restored the world. The Sparrowhawk people will sing about this raid for generations – how they openly strode up to the heart of the Peoples and cut it out.”

“They’ll be slaughtered on their trip back to the mountains.”

“Perhaps. I’ve warned them to withdraw quickly. They might outpace word about what happened here. If they don’t, they don’t.”

The megaliths flickered orange.

“Then the Peoples will take vengeance on you.”

“Not against me. I’ll tell a convincing tale of betrayal. They’ll believe it of ‘savages.’ This is my land now. I’m deposing you by the way. I’ll tell the Peoples this site has been defiled and they need to bury it in order to purify it. Within a few years they’ll revert to their old natural ways.”

 “I think you are wrong,” he said. “You can’t reverse the direction of the sun. There are too many living in this land to live as wanderers as the Sparrowhawks do. The skills that made this place will not vanish. Even if you destroy this place, something like this will arise again.”

“Maybe. But not now. Please come with me so I can protect you.”

He shook his head. “Protect yourself.”

“As you wish.”

She climbed the ladder onto the roof. From the top of the ladder she could see mayhem by the light of burning buildings. A Sparrowhawk threw a torch on the thatch roof of the Grand Temple. She slid down the side away from the flames.

She knew her father was right. Bound plants, bound animals, and bound people were the future. But not yet. She would hold it back a little longer. And Jerboa was not present to interfere.