This cold season we lost many of our people.
Strangers have come from the mountains drawn on the line that separates heaven from earth.
Where game is abundant. Our sustenance in the warm season.
Should we fight and hunt them?
Killing a creature that walks upright is not the same as stalking a beast.

These strangers don't understand us, but once the mistrust has faded, our signs look alike and words are learned.
Animals can't talk to us. They will never be like us.
Do they wonder about the meaning of the lights hanging in the sky?
Our skin has no fur to resist the cold, and we need fire to exist.
To talk to each other, express our feelings and make tools.

Some animals do.
But they don't draw their hunts in caves, assemble skins for clothing or colorful stone necklaces, or make weapons for hunting.
Our minds are awakened to the world of thought, without it being useful to the subsistence of the group.
We are no longer animals.

These men are different, their clothes are smooth, they wear them in layers.
They're not like the other peoples of the white mountains, shining in the sun.
How did they come by the large shells they wear around their necks, with their little mother-of-pearl spindles with their blue reflections?
The women of the horde want to wear them to look beautiful.
We exchanged furs for these jewels.
Everyone lowered their weapons.
Since then, our women have been watching each other in the frozen river with these jewels, laughing among themselves and glancing at the men watching them

I showed the foreigners how we draw on the partitions: a buffalo, horses, birds.
They marveled at the colors, the criss-crossing curves and the fire of our torches along the walls that seemed to make this fictitious animal world move.
They wanted to know the cry of these beasts.
Stunned by our imitations of bear growls, some instinctively put their hands on their spears.

Their drawings are simple: crosses, circles, dashes and dotted lines, arranged in groups.
Symbols that resemble nothing living but represent the world around them.
Their fawns have neither mane nor claws.
An oval with several lines underneath and another zigzag line at what is the head.
It's a lion.
And this sign is painted in a single shade of white, with no color whatsoever, they point to it and pronounce its name.
"Lion.

Our lions are much more beautiful, the name we give them is different.
But we don't know how to make a symbol with a few strokes in a few seconds, accompanying it with other signs that, all together, tell the story of their great journey, since they left a very large lake.
So big that you never see the other side.

The story goes that one day other men came from this distant shore on branches tied together.
They were armed with a strange braided rope on which a round of tanned skin threw stones.
So fast that you couldn't see them coming and hitting the heads of the bravest warriors.
They had to leave to survive.
All together.
They know that to go too far, without the others, is to perish.
But to stay too close, with the others, is to perish.

We must not kill them.

I sat down with their leader on the edge of the rock overlooking the valley.
I asked him if he knew where all those lights that shine at night come from.
His people also admire these beings of light.
They know they move with the seasons.
To them, they are giants who protect us by making the water fall from the sky, from the rivers where we fish and the water that makes the bushes and trees grow and bear sweet fruit.
Some of these lights sometimes make curved sprays in the sky as they shoot off into the distance.
He showed me the sign they paint to name these receding lights.
Several spikes starting from a single center with a curve backwards.
In their language, this name has become that of the end of the warm season, before the leaves of the trees turn yellow.

I went into the cave.
Facing the wall of hunting drawings, I painted their symbol above the animals of our valley.
"Star.
I'm going to talk to these giants who dominate us and who are the masters of the sky.
Maybe they'll listen.

It's a cold day. There are a lot of us, with the travelers driven from their land.
There is less game for all.
Our children are weak and some are sick.
My youngest son coughs very hard and can hardly breathe.

His mother begs me with her eyes.
I'm the boss.
I don't know how to save him.
You giants of light, you magical beings who live high up in the sky, you who make the light rise by chasing away night and fear.
What can I do?
How can I tell what's right from what's wrong?
Talk to me.
Show me.
I'll recognize you as the masters of heaven and earth.
I know your name and now I can write it on the walls.

Writing names.
It means giving life to immaterial beings.

In a few millennia, the priests of Amun will explain how to bring these creators of the world into existence by writing and pronouncing their names.
For them to protect mankind, we must not distance ourselves from them.
But we mustn't be their equals, so as not to upset them.

To go too far without them is to perish.
To get too close to them is to perish.

To believe.
To exist without fear in their eternal world.

To be continued...

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A text from the temple of Edfu in Egypt relates the birth of the god Thoth, who created the world through writing and the spoken word:
"From the heart of the primordial ocean appeared the emerged earth. On this, the Eight came into existence. They brought forth a lotus from which emerged Ra, likened to Shu. Then came a lotus bud from which emerged a dwarf, a necessary female auxiliary, whom Ra saw and desired. From their union was born Thoth, who created the world through the Word
Inventor of writing and language, he is the "language of Atum" and the scribe of the gods. The embodiment of intelligence and speech, he knows the magic formulas that the gods cannot resist. According to legend, whoever can decipher the magical formulas in the Book of Thoth can hope to surpass the gods themselves.
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