Long ago, in the Mists of Ancient Time, before History began, there lived, deep within a vast tropical forest, a happy, peaceful tribe. Securely surrounded by the giant trees that seemed to touch the sky, they enjoyed their simple life. Cozy in their leaf-covered huts, they wanted for nothing and had no need to journey afar. The fruits of the forest were nearby and their gently-flowing river supplied all the clean water that they needed.

The only thing that they were short of was sunlight. The branches of the tall trees shaded all of their land and, as they had never met with other tribes, they did not realise that they were the only pale-skinned tribe in all of the Land.

One day a daughter was born to the beautiful wife of the handsome leader of the tribe and, as was the custom of the tribe, the mother-to-be had moved in with the old women, to have her baby. Their hut was set some distance away from the rest of the tribe and out-of-bounds to the men.

The mother adored the tiny infant, her first-born, and devoted all of her time to feeding, washing and softly singing to her. She was rewarded with wet, bubbly gurgles and blue-eyed smiles that echoed and beamed around the dingy hut.

When the baby was three months old, the proud mother returned to live with her husband and the rest of the tribe and almost bursting with joy she showed the father his child.

 "This is not my baby," he roared in anger. "It is deformed. It is ugly!"

 "Look!" he screamed, "its arm is short and twisted. This is not my daughter: it is a Devil-child! Kill it!

Take it from my sight, I never want to see it again!"

The broken-hearted mother stumbled away in amazement at the unexpected outburst. She wept and wailed as she wandered aimlessly about the village, looking for somewhere to hide her frightened, innocent baby.

Tormented by the way her life had disintegrated in an instant, she screamed and cried so much that even the clear blue sky became unhappy. Heavy black clouds covered the Sun and quickly they poured out tears of sympathy. Torrential rain smashed its way through the branches of the trees and onto the fragile village, wrecking the huts and flooding the area. Thunder crashed around the Heavens as forked tongues of lightning threatened to burn down the forest.

The ground heaved and shook in violent rage, as the Gods of the Land, showed that they too were upset by the father's cruel words. Suddenly, with an almighty bang, the ground was rent asunder to form a deep, jagged ravine. A thrashing river of floodwater, full of mighty trees, smashed its way into the ravine.

The leader of the tribe, furious that his orders had not been obeyed and, blaming his wife for the havoc, tore his baby from the mother's protective arms, raised her above his head and shook her. Then with a defiant scream to the Gods he hurled his daughter far out into the dark raging torrent.

The child, as if held carefully in the palm of a huge invisible hand, seemed to float gracefully through the spray-filled air until she landed gently in a large feather-lined nest. Securely held in the branches of a huge floating tree, the nest and the baby drifted away. Within minutes, the raging torrent had become a smooth-flowing river again and the makeshift boat sailed gently towards the open sea.

All photographs of the jungle are copyrighted

and used by kind permission of Marty Casado

 e:mail marty@ambergriscaye.com

Copyright reserved. No part(s) of these publications may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of the author.

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