The Acorn-Planter

Jack London

The Acorn-Planter / A California Forest Play (1916)

ARGUMENT

     In the morning of the world, while his tribe

     makes its camp for the night in a grove, Red

     Cloud, the first man of men, and the first man

     of the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the duty

     of life, which duty is to make life more abundant.

     The Shaman, or medicine man, sings of

     foreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, who

     commands in war, sings that war is the only

     way to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirming

     that the way of life is the way of the acorn-

     planter, and that whoso slays one man slays

     the planter of many acorns. Red Cloud wins

     the Shaman and the people to his contention.

     After the passage of thousands of years, again

     in the grove appear the Nishinam. In Red

     Cloud, the War Chief, the Shaman, and the

     Dew-Woman are repeated the eternal figures

     of the philosopher, the soldier, the priest, and

     the woman—types ever realizing themselves

     afresh in the social adventures of man. Red

     Cloud recognizes the wrecked explorers as

     planters and life-makers, and is for treating

     them with kindness. But the War Chief and

     the idea of war are dominant The Shaman

     joins with the war party, and is privy to the

     massacre of the explorers.

     A hundred years pass, when, on their seasonal

     migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in

     the grove. They still live, and the war formula

     for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence

     of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are

     flooding into California from north, south, east,

     and west—the English, the Americans, the

     Spaniards, and the Russians. The massacre by

     the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying,

     recognizes the white men as brother acorn-planters,

     the possessors of the superior life-formula

     of which he had always been a protagonist.

     In the Epilogue, or Apotheosis, occur the

     celebration of the death of war and the triumph

     of the acorn-planters.

PROLOGUE

     Time.

In the morning of the world.

     Scene.

A forest hillside where great trees stand with wide

     spaces between. A stream flows from a spring that bursts

     out of the hillside. It is a place of lush ferns and brakes,

     also, of thickets of such shrubs as inhabit a redwood forest

     floor. At the left, in the open level space at the foot of the

     hillside, extending out of sight among the trees, is visible a

     portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary

     camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing

     about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies

     and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie

     about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young

     women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed

     about their camp tasks. A number of older women are

     pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An

     old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the

     hillside. All wear moccasins and are skin-clad, primitive,

     in their garmenting. Neither iron nor woven cloth occurs

     in the weapons and gear.

ACT I

Shaman

(Looking up hillside.)

     Red Cloud is late.

Old Man

(After inspection of hillside.)

     He has chased the deer far. He is patient.

     In the chase he is patient like an old man.

Shaman

     His feet are as fleet as the deer's.

Old Man

(Nodding.)

     And he is more patient than the deer.

Shaman

(Assertively, as if inculcating a lesson.)

     He is a mighty chief.

Old Man

(Nodding.)

     His father was a mighty chief. He is like to

     his father.

Shaman

(More assertively.)

     He is his father. It is so spoken. He is

     his father's father. He is the first man, the

     first Red Cloud, ever born, and born again, to

     chiefship of his people.

Old Man

     It is so spoken.

Shaman

     His father was the Coyote. His mother was

     the Moon. And he was the first man.

Old Man

(Repeating.)

     His father was the Coyote. His mother was

     the Moon. And he was the first man.

Shaman

     He planted the first acorns, and he is very

     wise.

Old Man

(Repeating.)

     He planted the first acorns, and he is very

     wise.

(Cries from the women and a turning of

     faces. Red Cloud appears among his

     hunters descending the hillside. All

     carry spears, and bows and arrows.

     Some carry rabbits and other small

     game. Several carry deer)

     PLAINT OF THE NISHINAM

     Red Cloud, the meat-bringer!

     Red Cloud, the acorn-planter!

     Red Cloud, first man of the Nishinam!

     Thy people hunger.

     Far have they fared.

     Hard has the way been.

     Day long they sought,

     High in the mountains,

     Deep in the pools,

     Wide 'mong the grasses,

     In the bushes, and tree-tops,

     Under the earth and flat stones.

     Few are the acorns,

     Past is the time for berries,

     Fled are the fishes, the prawns and the grasshoppers,

     Blown far are the grass-seeds,

     Flown far are the young birds,

     Old are the roots and withered.

     Built are the fires for the meat.

     Laid are the boughs for sleep,

     Yet thy people cannot sleep.

     Red Cloud, thy people hunger.

Red Cloud

(Still descending.)

     Good hunting! Good hunting!

Hunters

     Good hunting! Good hunting!

(Completing the descent, Red Cloud

     motions to the meat-bearers. They throw

     down their burdens before the women,

     who greedily inspect the spoils.)

     MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM

     Meat that is good to eat,

     Tender for old teeth,

     Gristle for young teeth,

     Big deer and fat deer,

     Lean meat and fat meat,

     Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone,

     Liver and heart.

     Food for the old men,

     Life for all men,

     For women and babes.

     Easement of hunger-pangs,

     Sorrow destroying,

     Laughter provoking,

     Joy invoking,

     In the smell of its smoking

     And its sweet in the mouth.

(The younger women take charge of the meat,

     and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.)

(Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders

     and watches them with pleasure.

     All group about him, the Shaman to the

     fore, and hang upon his every action, his

     every utterance.)

Red Cloud

     The heart of the acorn is good?

First Old Woman

(Nodding.)

     It is good food.

Red Cloud

     When you have pounded and winnowed and

     washed away the bitter.

Second Old Woman

     As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the

     world was very young and thou wast the first man.

Red Cloud

     It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good.

Shaman

     It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns

     and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the

     Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the

     tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew

     of the morning.

(He nods a signal to the Old Man.)

Old Man

     In the famine in the old time,

     When the old man was a young man,

     When the heavens ceased from raining,

     When the grasslands parched and withered,

     When the fishes left the river,

     And the wild meat died of sickness,

     In the tribes that knew not acorns,

     All their women went dry-breasted,

     All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,

     All their old men sighed and perished,

     And the young men died beside them,

     Till they died by tribe and totem,

     And o'er all was death upon them.

     Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,

     Did not perish by the famine.

     Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!

     Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them

     How to store in willow baskets

     'Gainst the time and need of famine!

Shaman

(Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has

     nodded approbation, turning to Red

     Cloud.)

     Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of

     life which is the song of the acorn.

Red Cloud

(Making ready to begin)

     And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.

Shaman

(Hushing the people to listen, solemnly)

     He sings with his father's lips, and with the

     lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time

     and men.

     SONG OF THE FIRST MAN

Red Cloud

     I am Red Cloud,

     The first man of the Nishinam.

     My father was the Coyote.

     My mother was the Moon.

     The Coyote danced with the stars,

     And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night

     The Coyote is very wise,

     The Moon is very old,

     Mine is his wisdom,

     Mine is her age.

     I am the first man.<b