An Ecology of MInd (16 page)

"No matter how it gets dressed up or camouflaged, individuals always seem to have a belief that everyone should behave and think as they do. Even cultures
that express that variety in thought and actions is desirable, still apply narrow ranges to the type and amount of variety that is considered acceptable.”

"If you are studying history, or even assessing current events, it is important to realize that events and actions all happen within a particular cultural
framework that is often very different from your own. You also need to keep in mind that you judge these and deal with your current reality through the
distortions of your own cultural filters."

"All ideas or concepts are altered to some degree by other aspects or ideas of a given culture or mindset. For example, the ultrasound machine was
developed and is routinely used in our society as a way to monitor the development of human fetuses so that medical problems can be discovered and
intercepted or treated early on. This is an item of technology and an idea of use that seems very simple and straightforward. However, if you change the
mindset or culture of the people using it, you often get the idea or concept expressed in different ways."

"For example, some religious groups object strongly to the use of the ultrasound machines as they see them as being used to interfere with God's will or
intended plan."

"As another example, the same ultrasound machines are commonly used in small street clinics in India, but instead of being used to diagnose problems with
development, they are often used by the clients to identify the sex of the fetus so that if it is female, it can be aborted."

"You may introduce the idea or concept and think it will be unchanged, but it is always affected by the mindset or culture it is introduced to."

"We can look at more of a historical example with the wheel. For a long time, it was thought by historians that the wheel was never invented by the native
cultures of North and South America. This is not totally true. They have since discovered examples of the wheel in some limited locations. Instead of
having a widespread use they were sometimes used on the base of children's toys."

"The concept of the wheel existed, but while in Europe, Asia and Egypt, it was used in chariots and wagons, in the Americas it never was utilized beyond
the occasional child's toy. This is another example of a single concept expressed differently in different cultures."

"This process is what happened with Christianity. It was a religion with a mandate to its followers to spread the beliefs to other people. The ideas were
then sometimes altered somewhat when interpreted and assimilated by other cultures and groups over time and the splintering into numerous sects, and
branches occurred."

"Culture acts as a lens that distorts what you see and think."

THE TRIBE HAD GROWN STRONG under his leadership. He had used his many lifetimes of experience at hunting to teach the hunters of the tribe, and they were
much better at bringing in food for the larger tribe.

There were occasional clashes with other tribes but with his abilities, he crushed them and word spread so that fewer and fewer challenged them, preferring
to give his tribe a wide berth and not risk his wrath.

What he had not seen was the extent of the risk from within the tribe. He had been vaguely aware that there were some currents of discontent, but he had
been sure of his physical ability to face any challenge. He did not even bother worrying about the pockets of dissent, jealousies and resentments within
his tribe. A mistake he would try not to make again, but that did not solve his current problem.

After several years of not being able to find any more No Chins to kill, he finally had accepted that they were probably all dead. It had been a gradual
process, but he had started to think more and more about what to do with his life after his vengeance was complete.

Without any real long term plan, he had finally taken over the leadership of a small tribe by rite of combat. That was years ago, and the tribe had grown
and flourished to the point that it now had many, many hands of members.

He had chosen a mate and had slowly opened up to her and grown to love her. They had no children, and people assumed she was barren. He was not sure. All
knew women were the source of life and therefore, any failures to bring forth that life were faults in the woman. However, he was so different from other
men that he had a nagging doubt that somehow he may have been the reason. Between that doubt and his love for Reena, he did not set her aside as a wife.
Also, he did not seem to die, so he was not worried about having a son to hand things over to.

His problem was that his love of Reena was a weakness that his enemies had taken advantage of. When he had been away from camp on a hunting trip, his
enemies had taken her. They had her under constant guard and had threatened to kill her if he did not do as he was told. They would also kill her if he
went anywhere near where they kept her to try rescuing her.

He could kill them all easily, but not before they could kill Reena. Garath and his supporters were using threats to her to force him to do as they wished.
He hated them and would kill them all at the first chance, but as long as they held his wife, there was little he could do. He had tried refusing them, and
they had beaten her until she could hardly walk for four days. They never did any damage severe enough to kill her because they knew that the moment she
was dead he would kill them all.

It was not a situation that he could see lasting. He knew he would outlive Reena, and that she would grow old and die. He had accepted that when he had
married her. He also knew that waiting and biding his time for a single lifetime was not a major problem for him, but it was no life for her to be a
constant prisoner and the waste of their possible time together infuriated him.

He knew that they could kill Reena before he could eliminate Garath and his supporters. They were very careful and always had people next to her. They also
watched him constantly. However, letting them kill Reena might be preferable to condemning her to live a life of perpetual imprisonment and abuse.

He did not want to give up if there was a chance to save her. He wanted to scream in frustration and nothing he had been able to think of so far had any
workable chance of doing anything but getting her killed.

He was on his way now to raid another tribe. Treg, who was Garath’s second in command, was with him along with five others. They were making him go with
them to kill all the male members of the other tribe. They would then loot their camp and take all of their women. The other tribe had done nothing to
them, and he had no complaint or animosity against them but as usual, if he did not do was commanded, they would torture Reena.

The hunters with him would probably stay back and make him kill the warriors then come join the slaughter after, when there were only children left. They
were cowards and would not risk themselves but would want to join in the killing.

It sickened him, and the neighboring tribe had done nothing to deserve it. It reminded him strongly of when his tribe had been slaughtered, but any
disobedience on his part in the past had just resulted in beatings or some other form of torture for the woman he loved.

It was a three-day walk to the other tribe and at the end of the first day they had stopped and made camp by a small lake. He went down by the edge of the
lake to get away from the others for a bit. He hated their mere presence, but he knew they watched him closely.

Treg came down to the water next to him. "You understand what you have to do when we get to the other tribe Killer?" Teg and some of the others liked to
call him Killer. He had often told them the moment Reena was dead he would kill them all, and they liked to use the name to taunt him.

He looked across the lake at the trees on the far side and thought of the freedom of just running off to the woods. "I understand."

"Good, don't get it wrong or your bitch will pay for it."

He didn't answer and Treg after glaring at him stalked off to the camp. He stayed and looked across the lake. After a short time, he bent over to get a
handful of water to drink. He saw his reflection below him. He stopped and stared at the reflection as a hint of an idea teased at his mind.

The day his tribe had been slaughtered by the No Chins he had made his wounds heal, and the skin grew across the wound. He had not had to do that since
shortly after, when he had made it so his body did not get damaged at all. He should be able to still do it though, and if he could do that, he could
possibly do something more.

Looking down at his left hand he concentrated on making his hand look like that of an old man. He felt that now-familiar feeling of reaching out in his
head and contacting something and saw the hand change in shape and appearance. Excited by his success, he returned it to normal.

He could change his body at will. How far could he go? Looking down at his reflection he concentrated on changing his face and whole body to that of
someone else. In his reflection, he saw the tissue flow, and then he was looking at the reflection of Treg.

Treg’s face in the water smiled a nasty looking smile up at him. He turned away from the face in the lake and headed toward the camp.

The men with him on the raiding party were shocked when he ran into the camp and started killing. They saw Treg, their raid leader, attacking them. Treg
put up the most fight, probably because he did not recognize that the person attacking looked like him. He killed them quickly and brutally. He could not
take the chance of any of them escaping back to the main camp for his plan to work.

When they were all dead, he started to retrace their route to the main camp. He did not tire and could run the whole way, but it was dark, and he could not
see his way through the forest as well at night. Even so, he made it back to the tribe’s camp only part way through the night.

As he approached the camp, he slowed down and started to limp as if it hurt to put weight on his one leg. He did this until he was challenged by one of the
camp sentries. He growled a reply that he was Treg and had twisted his ankle badly so that he would be useless in a fight and only slow down the rest of
the party. He did not think he could duplicate Treg’s voice and simply tried to make it sound angry and irritated. Hopefully just not having it sound like
his own voice would be good enough. After all, he looked like Treg.

The sentry seemed to accept this easily. After all, Treg was second in power only to Garath and not to be questioned or trifled with. He limped towards the
part of the camp where they kept Reena imprisoned. There were constantly three sentries around the small tent, they kept her in and a fourth, inside the
tent with a knife, and ready to kill her at the slightest hint he was trying to free her.

This was explained to him in detail to show him the hopelessness of trying to rescue her. They were watching out for him though, not Treg. He should be
able to walk right up and order them to let him see the prisoner. That would put him close enough to the inside sentry to kill him before they could act.
If he could just get Reena free, he could get her out of the camp and hide her until he could kill all those that threatened her.

He limped up to the tent. He growled at the sentries that he had to talk to the “bitch." They recognized him as Treg and let him pass. He limped up to the
entrance of the tent and went inside.

Once inside he looked quickly for the inside sentry. The sentry was not standing inside as he had expected so it took a couple of instants for him to
locate him in the tent. He saw the sentry on the ground. He went to kill him in his sleep, before he could warn the outside sentries then stopped in
confusion.

He could see that the inside sentry was already dead, with his throat slashed. On the other side of the sentry was Reena’s body with her throat slashed as
well and the sentry’s knife in her hand. Both the knife and her hand were covered in blood.

She must have managed to get the knife away from the guard and kill him then kill herself. The outside sentries had not heard the noise or had ignored it
assuming the inside sentry was abusing her. She had reached a decision on her own before he could rescue her. Either she did not want to live a life of
abuse and imprisonment, or she had chosen not to allow Garath and his followers to use her to make her husband do as they wanted.

The blood was still fresh. If he had been a little earlier, he would have been able to rescue her. The pain of seeing her dead body began to change to
hate. His rage built, and he used his newfound ability. He got larger and much more muscular. He grew long powerful claws, and his head flowed into a
hideous visage with a large mouth with lots of teeth, very sharp teeth.

"His vengeance on Garath and his supporters would be swift, even if they did not die quickly. He would not stop there, though. No one else in the rest of
the tribe made a move to help Reena during her capture or afterwards during her imprisonment. Yes, it was probably due to fear but in his grief and rage
that was not justification enough for their inaction.