The Pandemic Project - Volume 3

Blight of the Crow Phillip Zaborny I. Anamake In the time before any a white man traveled across the sea and accosted the land of those who wouldn’t harm it (those being the natives, the lovers of the land and nature) lived a tribe. An ancient tribe, still at the cusp of an ancient age it seemed.

All tools were made of bone, and if not bone, then stone, and if not stone then wood, and if not wood, well, then it was not made. This tribe, the Anamake (AN-AH-MOCK-EE), didn’t believe in removing precious ore from the earth. They never would, by choice, advance in technology. It was a tale tied to their origin, in which two spirits grew from the earth, (the first people) much like a tree, or a flower, a plant, or a crop; and since ore doesn't grow, it shouldn’t be plucked from its precarious place of rest. In the story of how the Anamake came to exist, things that grew signified life, and those which didn’t, signified death. In their strange land there was a shiny, blue, and mysteriously valuable ore, “either” ore. Famed and unbeknownst to the Anamake for its allegedly magical properties.

The Anamake had a symbiotic relationship with nature, and this was evident in the way that the tribe lived. There were no true laws. Everyone was free to swim if they wanted, or hunt, or play games, any time. To wander… anywhere, and to come back from that whenever they wished. There were punishments, though, for harming the earth; since they came from the earth, they believed harming each other was to harm the divine. There was relatively little violence. There was an abundance of community and spiritualism. The Anamake had no chief, no leader, but they did have a council of elders. They advised the tribe, because they had existed for longer than most, and therefore had the great honor of suggesting. Among these elders was a medicine-mixer and herbalist, Crow.

II. The Wooden Swan It was in the warmest months of the year, wherever the Anamake lived (there is no geological evidence of them left, only stories) when Crow saw a great wooden swan with many strange wings upon the vast waters. These waters provided many things to the Anamake, it was very much part of them. And this large swan made of trees and many wings was surely a spirit, something Crow had heard stories about for many years, and told stories about for many more. Crow watched as this great swan pulled its odd wings in, and seemed to rest a far distance out from the shore. Crow ran, or flew, towards the longhouse, through the woods, and this scared a monkey, that in turn hurried to its home to alert its own family, of Crow.

Crow, almost out of breath, grabbed the only arm of One-Talon, “A great swan is sleeping in the waters of the East!”

Crow was old, and running that far was laborious; One-Talon, who was notoriously curious (and paid for that curiosity with a limb) gathered a small group that were in ear-shot to check out the swan. When the small band arrived at an overlook, the great wooden swan was gone. They took their time walking back to the longhouse, and now, nightfall, they told Crow and the 36