The Oldest Magick
Part Two: The Speaking Spirits
Lew Paxton Price
The time is over 10,000 years ago, the place is somewhere on a planet called Earth, and the cast is a small group of nearly hairless bipeds.
The bamboo came loose from its roots as he made the final cut with his sharp rock. He could use the thick part near the root for a medium length club and the longer, less stout portion would be his staff. He began to dress the cut end with his rough stone.
That morning he had awakened to voices saying that the neighboring clan had been trespassing and stealing their tubers again. He would need a new and resilient staff with a short club to deal effectively with the trespassers. His clan women had been most verbal in their feelings as to what should be done about this latest intrusion.
He began making the first cut between what was to be the staff and what was to be the club. He would have to make two cuts in order to remove the section between the nodes of the bamboo. If this hollow section, rather than a solid node, were at the end, the bamboo would lose its strength as it dried. After the first cut, the club with the undesired extra length came loose in his hand. He preferred to have this extra hollow portion remain on his club for a time before removing it. This allowed the sounds to come forth by acting as a mouth.
Holding the club backward, with the heavy end in his hand, he swung it around him and listened to the sound of rushing water that the mouth produced. The spirits of the elements that had created the bamboo were speaking to him as they had to the bamboo during its growing years. Now that the bamboo had been cut loose from the nurturing earth, the life giving elements must leave it.
He held the mouth of the hollow part before him as the sun's light first penetrated the bamboo grove. The sudden brightness made him sneeze. There was another sound that was so loud that he heard it for a very short time even after the sneeze. He had felt the bamboo vibrating in his hand while the sound was there. The spirits in the bamboo were much stronger than any he had heard before—perhaps this bamboo would make more powerful weapons. But why had the spirits spoken when he had not swung the club? Were they insulted by his sneeze? Were they sneezing back? Were they mocking him? Or were they merely answering him?
He tried to sneeze again and failed. He coughed but nothing else happened. He faked a sneeze but still the spirits did not answer. Perhaps he was not holding the club correctly. He tried to remember how he had held it before. Again he faked a sneeze—and now the spirits answered.
Later that day as they closed for battle with the deer clan, he blew as he had learned to blow on the end of his new spirit club. They came even closer to the enemy amidst the sound of drums, clicking rocks, growling and shouting. He blew loudly upon it again and swung it toward them. Nervous and apprehensive during the preliminaries to the coming battle, the nearest of the deer clan now turned and ran. The rest half-heartedly threw their stones and then ran fast enough to overtake the first one.
In the days that followed, he told and retold his story many times, pantomiming their attack and the enemy's flight. He demonstrated the spirit club again and again to the other members of the clan and some of them wanted to touch and to blow upon it. Finally, for a brief period he let each of them try. Each failed, as he knew they would. It had taken him until the sun was nearly overhead that first morning to learn the secret of spirit summoning. Nor had the spirits been encouraging. Each time he had begun to hear them, the spirits had made him so dizzy that he had to lie down and rest for a time.
After that they spoke of the club which contained his spirits which only <EIUC0K24>e<MIC255K0>he could bring forth. Now each of them wanted to find a club with spirits that would work for the club's owner. They consulted the medicine woman often in the ensuing days and she would advise when and how to find the right bamboo grove and the right shoot within it. Each time a young man failed, she was ready with a reason. He had not cut the bamboo quickly enough and the spirits had fled. Or, he had not been holding the right thoughts as he cut the bamboo.
Each night by the fire, the spirit summoner would blow on his spirit club. The others would gather round and beat upon wooden drums, click rocks together and sing. The young women longed for him and the young men admired him. He was a great warrior.
Then there was a day when another man succeeded in finding his spirit club. He richly rewarded the medicine woman and reverence for her increased. The spirits in the new club did not sound quite the same as those in the first. It was apparent that each man required his own personal spirits, suited to his own unique personality.
The medicine woman called in the two spirit club wielders shortly after the second man had found his club. She praised each of the men, complimenting both upon their splendid clubs and their ability to summon spirits. Each of them, she explained, would be an even greater warrior as the seasons passed, defending the clan against intruders and leading successful hunts and forays. Their successes, she continued, would go on and on as long as the spirits did not leave their clubs. But, she warned, if the spirits left, they would be taken as other men and the clan would be as other clans and the other clans would take revenge upon them.
This warning sobered the men and they asked if there were any way to assure that the spirits would stay. The medicine woman told them she did not know if there was any way to make the spirits stay forever, but there was a way to make them stay longer. By the end of the discussion, both men had left their spirit clubs with the medicine woman for treatment.
She had watched the men summon the spirit voices. So, late that night, after the others were asleep, she went off to the edge of the village and tried to summon the spirits herself. By the early morning hours, she was tired and very dizzy, but she had enjoyed some small success. After that she told them how to cut the bamboo and how to blow upon it. Her advice led to more men having spirit clubs. Always, the medicine woman kept each new club for a night so that she could treat it to make the spirits stay longer.
Each night about the fire was an adventure now as the singing; the spirit clubs accompanied drumming and clicking. The clubs could be played one after the other in many different arrangements, creating melodies. Some clubs sounded well when played simultaneously and others did not. Certain patterns were worth remembering and others were not. But each new pattern and each new harmony was an adventure in evoking emotion.
In the medicine woman's lifetime, her people became known as the clan of the spirits-who-speak. She taught her daughter to cut bamboo so that it could speak. Her daughter learned to make the bamboo speak most strongly in their rituals and ceremonies.
In her daughter's lifetime, the girl discovered that the longer pieces of bamboo had the deeper tones and the shorter pieces had the higher tones. She also found that one particular look (what we call proportion) contained the best sounding spirits. Her own daughter, the old medicine woman's granddaughter, systematically identified the lengths that sounded best together. She also found a way to place them together in a row so that a person could play tunes alone. Later generations would call this instrument the "pipes," "panpipes," or "syrinx." They would tell a myth of Pan creating it from reeds that had once been a nymph named Syrinx.
Copyright © 1988 by Lew Paxton Price | 
