In September, the four longships of the Kingdom continued to set off from the camp in South Port. They said goodbye to the newly established camp of huts, and also said goodbye to the fifty Kingdom crew members on the shore, and a dozen newly joined tribal women.
"We came from the north... They went to the north... We reached the river, that's where the tribes separated!... In the black forest, on the white sandy beach, in the cold wind of autumn and winter, this kind of separation is... Just like our ancestors!…”
Elder Woki of the Kusi people, with more than a hundred tribesmen, sang songs about farewell to relatives and friends. The muddy tone with stops, fricatives, fricatives and nasal sounds was full of deepness and desolation. The language of the Kusi people is a special Kusi language family (), which is different from the surrounding tribes on three sides. There seems to be some unique secret hidden in these ancient songs, the origin of the ancient tribe...but they have all disappeared in later generations and are never heard again.
As the fleet continued northward, long white sand dunes appeared along the way, spanning more than a hundred miles. Under the early autumn sunshine, it is soft and beautiful, like the long feathers left by the egret bird in tribal mythology, spreading out on the edge of the coast.
In later generations, the name of this dune was Umpqua Beach. The broad Umpqua River is flowing from the upper reaches of the beach, three to four hundred miles inland. The origin of the name "Umpqua" also refers to the Umpqua people, an Indian tribe that hunts in the upper reaches of the forest. And this word is also the self-proclaimed name of the Umpqua people in the Penutian language family, "people of land and homeland."
The fleet sailed past the white Home Beach and saw no trace of the Umpqua people. These hunters in the mountains are very good at hiding. They will only look at the mountains and forests in the east, and will not appear rashly on the beach in a small boat. And soon, what appeared in a small boat on the white coast were the Siuslaw people who also belonged to the Penutian language family and spoke coastal Penutian language.
The language of the Shuslau people can be barely communicated with the fleet through two tribal hunters, Lotte and Tou, after translating twice. The translation book of Cedar Shaman also records some simple vocabulary. The tribes on these coasts worship the sun and have built villages of various sizes in the peaceful coastal valleys in the north. And these villages belong to the same large tribe of Shuslau, called the Chaoyang tribe.
Mickey the Knowledgeable never thought that in the north of Coos Bay, a loose area with at most one or two hundred people, in a river valley only two hundred miles away, there would be a large tribe of more than two thousand people! And when he met the Sun Shaman from the Chaoyang Department, this unexpected feeling became even stronger.
"What tribe are you from? Where are you from? Where are you going?"
"We are the tribe in the lake, coming from the far south and going to the far north!"
"Why are you going to the north? You know, there is nothing in the north, it is desolate white and brown. We came here from the far north..."
"Well... for us, in the north, there are prophetic predictions and huge bays... This is the guidance of the sun!..."
"Oh! Chinook's guidance, the tribe's prophet..."
Hearing this, Chinook, the shaman of the Chaoyang tribe, smiled. The Shuslau people worship the sun, and every shaman of the Chaoyang Department is named after the sun, called "Chinook." He touched his chin and said meaningfully.
"The great sun Chinook rises and sets, and the place she looks at is our Chaoyang tribe. Hundreds of years ago, the great shaman Chinook received the guidance of the sun and led the tribe from the Far North. Come here. He led the tribe to plant fields with enlightenment on the white sandy beaches and coasts of the sun and obtain stable food..."
"But hundreds of years later, you are guided by the sun to the cold extreme north... It seems that our sun is not the same..."
"God bless you! Dear Chinook Shaman, how can people see the whole picture of the sun? The sun will continue to rise and set, appearing in different positions in the sky. Perhaps our sun, although it has different guidance , but it will be the same one!…”
"Oh? The same changing sun? Maybe! The descendants of the sun will never refuse the future guided by the sun... As long as she is really full of light and warmth..."
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After a thoughtful exchange of words, the elder shaman Chinook smiled and waved his hand.
"The tribes who came in the longship, thank you for your gifts of cloth and metal weapons! You can repair them in the Chaoyang Department and exchange some food fairly. It is the autumn of harvest, and the food of the tribe is quite abundant... and we eat Things, enlightenment from the great shaman Chinook, are actually found in other tribes, but not as much as here..."
"Huh? Harvest autumn? Shaman's enlightenment?... The northern tribes here should not have potatoes. The temperature is so low, and the land along the coast is so salty... What do the Shuslau people want to harvest?"
Mikey the Knowledgeable left the chief's longhouse full of questions. He stood on the edge of the sand dunes and shrubs, staring at the rare wooden longhouse in front of him, silent.
According to the fleet's experience along the way, the appearance of this kind of longhouse proves that the scale of a single tribe is large to a certain extent, and it has one or several chiefs or shamans with high status. Similarly, this also means that the tribes here do not need to migrate. They mainly focus on farming and have a stable food supply, which means there are many "fields".
"The fields of the Siuslawites?..."
Mikey, the knowledgeable man, pondered for a long time, until Zuvalo, the exploration captain, looked surprised and called out excitedly.
"Mickey! Mickey! Come here, come here!"
When Mikey the Knowledgeable heard the news, he saw Zuvalo standing on a barren hill covered with weeds, waving to him from a distance. He walked over in confusion, only to see Zuvalo squatting on the ground and digging out a long "weed" more than one meter high. Then, he watched as Zuvalo broke off a section of the pale yellow root system of the weed, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed it.
"Huh?! Zuvalo! Are you eating grass roots? Are you going to die?!"
"Haha! Witness the Lord God! Mickey, this time, you know less than me."
Exploration captain Zuvalo smiled proudly and raised his head. As he chewed the sweet grass roots, he tasted like raw sweet potatoes.
"This piece of weed is actually a 'field' grown in Chaoyang! This one-meter-high weed is actually their 'sun bean'. Well, it should be a kind of wild pea. The roots and fruits can be eaten. , so sweet!”
Zuvalo searched carefully for a while and picked out a bunch of pods. Then, he broke open the pod, poured the beans into his mouth, chewed them, and found they were still sweet.
"Here! You want to try it too. I asked the local tribesmen, and they compared it for a while and told me that they planted everything on this barren hill, and they can eat it all! ... By the way, I also saw They are picking bracken from the ground..."
With that said, exploration captain Zuvalo searched and found two kinds of bracken from around the wild peas. One type of leaves is curled, like a bear's paw, and very fresh and tender. Zuwaro picked off a few young leaves, put them in his mouth and chewed them, his eyes lit up.
"Eh? Although it's a bit astringent, it's very delicious!"
Hearing this, Mikey, the knowledgeable man, pondered for a while and tasted it carefully. This fern has a good taste and is a bear's palm fern intentionally grown in Chaoyang. Like vetch, it is a vegetable crop that is salt-alkali tolerant and suitable for coastal wilderness. Of course, there is a lot of starch in the rhizomes of vetch, and if grown in large quantities, it can be barely used as a staple food.
"Well, what's this last one?"
Mickey, the knowledgeable man, lowered his head and looked at the last type of thorn fern with triangular leaves in his hand. He couldn't help but put it in his mouth, tasted it carefully, and tasted it again.
"A bit bitter...a bit grassy...well, not as delicious as the bear's paw fern!..."
Mikey the Knowledgeable was thinking doubtfully when he heard Zuvalo calling him again. I don't know when, but the other party has gone to the coast and is staring at something carefully.
"Mickey! Look! These are still the fields of the Shuslau people, but they are sea fields! Look, they should be growing some kind of kelp, and there are clumps of seaweed! ...Interesting! What an interesting tribe!"
Mikey the Knowledgeable came to the seaside, lowered his head, and carefully observed the fields of the Siusula people. It is said to be a sea pond, but it is actually a small circle of seawall formed by digging a little in the shallow sea and using wooden poles. On the outside of the small circle, there are crude but practical fishing cages. The inner tidal flats and seawalls are densely planted with seaweed and kelp. Under the clear sunshine of autumn, these crops in the water float quietly and grow quietly, waiting for the tribesmen to collect and harvest them.
"Hmm... It's really interesting! The fields on land are planted with field peas, bear's paw fern, and thorn fern. The fields on the sea are planted with seaweed and kelp, and you can also catch fish... This inheritance from the Asahi Division is indeed extraordinary!"
"Blessed by the Lord God! The tribe led by the sun also has the wisdom of the sun...Sun Shaman Chinook..."
The two were talking when Mikey, the knowledgeable man, suddenly shook his head.
"Zuvaro...have you noticed that the sun is suddenly moving?"
"Huh? Mickey, what did you say?"
"I said, the sun is moving...uh!...It's setting!...Huh?..."
As he spoke, Mikey, the knowledgeable man, exclaimed and fainted on the beach. The warm sunshine shines on him like a salted fish with foaming at the mouth...
