The Beginning

This is an open response I did for Arts & Humanties. It's about the history of Man and how the elements (of art, of Music, of Drama...) all started.

 

WARNING: Some things might make you sick. Read if you have an empty stomach!

I plan to illustrate how the world, so simple and seemingly insignificant, develops into the complex society we have today. Our story starts out as unclothed beings coming together. Each one desires the incredible environment surrounding them. Each has his or her own beliefs on how live is to be lived. A war breaks out as the lightning strikes. Fear flows through the people’s veins as they run for terror that they will feel gods’ wrath. I am getting ahead of myself though. Religion? War? How did such paraphernalia (equipment) and rivalry start? How was life back then able to give modern day anthropologists and archeologists artifacts? How did the beginning of man begin?

 

Imagine crowds of unconcealed people traveling in Nature’s vengeance. They do not have protection from the elements and much disease and death is the consequence. A few people hide under a rock while others take shelter in the trees. They anxiously fall asleep. When they awaken, they feel so alive and energetic! They start to pile rocks on top of other rocks. They place these structures close to each other and soon a village is formed. Over time through the merciless climate and harsh predators, the structures grew bigger, deeper, and sturdier. They start to cut down trees and use the logs for buildings and warmth. They use the bark for a paint tray. They use sap and animal’s crimson liquid as paint. They use water from leaves, rain bowels, and anything else they could find that had water. They used feathers off of animals as gifts to one another and to decorate the buildings. This was beauty. This was art!

 

They learned to communicate with hand gestures and movements of the body. One time there was a fierce storm. The villagers panicked and started to gesture in all sorts of ways. Their hands clasped together and they kneeled. The storm vanished. The villagers cheered and thought that if those movements worked once to stop the storm, maybe if they do it before a great storm, the storm will not occur. They started to recall the movements and soon they had a beautifully choreographed dance.

This dance was preformed a day before a bad storm would occur. The dance turned into other dances. One for rains one for sun, and even others that we would have thought absurd today. The dances worked and soon rituals were preformed on or under post and lintel systems, and even on special stages and in shrines. They practiced watching choreographers and illustrations written in sacrificial blood. They took sticks and hit them against walls and hollow logs. This was incredible! This was superb! This is life!

 

 

Huddled in his or her beds thinking of such memorable days, they didn’t hear of the unwanted visitors admiring them from afar. The clothing they wore symbolizing their power in the tribe made the visitors seethe with anger. How dare such a tribe got everything and they got nothing. The unwanted and undeserving visitors wore masks made of dry blood and banded animal skins. They moved in the sound of a crescendo. They destroyed and they devoured the souls from the villagers. They left in the sound of a diminuendo.

 

My theory is that Nature started the development of man. The extremity of this part of history of man was a jealous cannibalistic tribal village. Why? I believe that such an event happened because jealousy and cannibalism had to start somewhere and this seems like the perfect time that this came to be. Sure a natural disaster might have been a better theory, or maybe even an animal attack. Tell me though. Of such things occurred, how did envy enter the mind of men and the tastes for the same species develop? How did these arts survive and spread around the world? Jealousy and men who suffer the disease is the answer.

 

 

Author's Note

If anyone knows of a better genre for this piece to be under let me know.