Chapter 124 – The Cubs in the Tribe
Translated by Sunyancai
During the hunting time, Mao saw those creatures with four fangs, and considered them as animals similar to wild boars and ferocious beasts.
Having seen several wild boars with four fangs, he finally caught a cub and brought it back to the tribe, only to be told that it was not a wild boar but a regular animal. With four fangs, this kind of beast looked like a wild boar, but didn’t have the thick fur or looked aggressive.
Mao originally thought it was a cub of the ferocious beast but it turned out to be just a regular beast.
Though Mao was disappointed after knowing this, he did not kill the cub and eat it, but kept it. He even deliberately went down from the mountain to ask Shao Xuan for advice on how to raise it.
Many people secretly laughed at Mao, because as the grandson of the chief, and the son of a team leader, he raised such a creature, while the other people raised wolves or leopards.
Mao named it “Si Ya” (literally four fangs), which looked like a babirusa. That was probably because he failed to find a ferocious beast with four fangs. Fortunately, the cub was a male which would have four fangs after growing up, so he temporarily kept it.
In the beginning, many people asked Shao Xuan for advice, but gradually, less and less people did so. After some hunting activities, less than one tenth of those asking for advice in the beginning would come to discuss the feeding experience with Shao Xuan, and the rest killed the cubs in the process to eat.
That was because it was the first time for the people in the tribe raising cubs. They handled some situations improperly, and sometimes were unable to control their strength. Some of them were impatient, or adopted the wrong way.
Of course, not all of the cubs were suitable to be trained as hunting animals, even if they were generally an aggressive specie, some had physical defects, or were timid in nature. Some even had other quirks. Even after training, they might not qualify.
Despite the great difficulty, a part of the people in the tribe still persisted in raising cubs while less and less people did so.
One day, the Shaman, after a walk in the tribe, asked Shao Xuan for a talk.
The Shaman could not stand it. He thought that it was a mess, raising cubs in the tribe, and the potential risk behind this was too great. He wanted to get qualified hunting animals with strength and loyalty, instead of those only with the power and the ferocious nature, but would betray in the end.
Training methods determined quality of the trained beasts.
Then Shao Xuan found a suitable open space at the foot of the mountain, and put up a whole piece of large stone slate there as a drawing board. As long as he didn’t go out for hunting, he would stay there to explain some feeding skills every few days. When the two hunting groups were in between changing shift, he would spare some time to teach them. After all, if they began hunting, it was impossible for him to explain to the other hunting group.
“If you want them to learn what you teach, while training, you must give them your order and gesture before pulling the straw rope. In this way, they would remember the meaning of your order and gesture. If you failed to do so and pulled the straw rope, they would have an impression of the straw rope rather than your order.
Caesar, come here…
Here is an example … Well, just like this…”
More than once, Shao Xuan saw people in the tribe pulling their cubs and shouting their orders at the same. However, it was a pity that the training was not effective.
“I will tell you a few ways to train your cubs. The first one is mechanical stimulation. That is to say, with certain means, you force them to do what you request. For example, if you want it to to lie down in the grass, in order to not let it get up, you can press it by hand. Through this way, you can make it lie in the grass. After receiving repeated training, the cubs will form the correct consciousness to take actions according to your order…”
While Shao Xuan was speaking, a young warrior, at the similar age of Shao Xuan, held the cub with his hand and said, “Like this?”
“…you’re just holding it, not pressing it.”
Details like this were all told by Shao Xuan to them.
In addition, Shao Xuan told them the method of food stimulation, the combination of mechanical and incentive training methods, and so on.
For many in the tribe, the most unacceptable method was food stimulation. In their view, the food was so valuable that they were reluctant to eat it themselves, let alone give some to the cubs which would have been eaten by them once caught. Simply unacceptable!
However, there were still some people who were willing to adopt this method, and most of them were young warriors, such as Mo Er and Mao.
In a situation like Shao Xuan at the beginning, Mo Er moved out to live alone and never starved. Many in Mo Er’s family were warriors and he never lacked of food, so it was not a problem for him to give some food to feed the cub.
Sometimes, when explaining the imitation training, Shao Xuan would show them an example with Caesar, and let those cubs stay with Caesar more often.
Several young wolves could follow Caesar’s actions, but it was a bit difficult for Mo Er’s cave lion and Mao’s Si Ya to do so, because the former was rebellious and the latter was simply gluttonous and lazy.
Mo Er’s cave lion was named Liao (literally a hunt), it was totally different from those Shao Xuan had seen before.
Most cave lions lived in caves in mountains alone, not in groups. They often hunted alone, facing against of cave bears and other ferocious large mammals, so their strength was not weak. That was why they were not easy to tame.
Both Mo Er and Mao had to make more effort than others training their cubs. It depended on their patience.
Day by day, the cubs that were being brought back to the tribe became less and less, but the ones that survived were growing up.
After Shao Xuan’s explanations and demonstrations, the young warriors gradually changed their training methods. Now, walking in the tribe, you could often see some of the young warriors keeping their cubs as company while they were chatting with others.
All those cubs were initially tied with a straw rope around their necks, but gradually, their necks were untied, but they didn’t run around. Every time they went out, they closely followed the young warriors. Their training was effective.
Sometimes, two young warriors from different hunting groups competed with each other in terms of their raising skills.
In the tribe, some old people who hadn’t hunted for many years worried that the beasts would hurt people at night. Therefore, they were not optimistic about this, and didn’t want their offsprings trying it.
Among them, some had wounds and disabilities caused by ferocious beasts in the mountains and woods. Even though some beasts raised in the tribe were not so threatening, these old warriors were still wary of the beasts. Therefore, they gathered together to discuss about how to report this problem to the team leaders or the chief to make the youngsters give up keeping the beasts.
However, the two team leaders’ children also kept beasts. The grandson of the chief even raised a bald boar! It was said that bald boar had eaten a lot of herbs which had been hidden by Ta. That was why Ta looked angry every day. But he didn’t slaughter the boar.
The group of old warriors were very worried, but still could not think up a good reason to kill those cubs. That group of youngsters actively raised the cubs every day.
As the old warriors talked about this secretly, tightly holding a stone knife in the mountain, Ta was so angry that his blue veins were showing on his forehead, and his whole body was trembling, for he was fighting against his rage.
In front of him, the bald boar raised by his son had eaten a package of herbs under the stone bench. The herbs were used for pest control. If ignited, they could smoke a large number of insects to death. In spite of eating these herbs, the boar was still alive and energetic.
How many times did the boar do this? After waking up, it looked for something to eat everywhere with a strong sense of smell. Nothing would be left if found. Now, Si Ya was much stronger than the other cubs, possibly because it had eaten so much.
Ta didn’t kill Si Ya just to avoid losing face. If he slaughtered it, the people on the other side of the mountain would have laughed at them for failing to raise a boar. That was why he had been fighting so hard against his rage.
“Eat it again, and I’ll kill you!” Said Ta.
Chewing the herb, Si Ya looked up at Ta, grunting “Ah hum!”
Ta thought this bald boar was damned, wondering why Mao brought it back.
Compared with Shao Xuan’s obedient Caesar, he thought this boar was completely a waste.
Coming back from the training ground, Mao found his father was angry, so he immediately took Si Ya outside.
“Tie it well! Use a thicker rope, and don’t let it go, or I’ll kill you!” Shouted Ta at the back of Mao.
Holding Si Ya in his arms, Mao ran away quickly, questioning in his mind why he was blamed for the boar’s mistake.
Somewhere on the hillside.
With a cold face, Mo Er looked at the ragged beast skin on the bed, and inclined his head to look at the place under the table against the wall.
“Come out!”
Hiding under the table, the cub shrank inside.
Holding the knife handle, Mo Er was thinking over whether to directly slaughter it.
In the tribe, raising cubs had brought trouble to many people, but Shao Xuan was now too busy to pay any attention to it.
In his study of old volumes engraved with secret crafts, Shao Xuan found that his promotion was mainly influenced by not the totem, but some other power inside him.
What on earth was the egg-shaped thing which covered the totem inside, or the strange stone which originally brought him to this world?
Warriors said it was the totem that influenced the power in everyone’s body, but Shao Xuan had a faint idea that the totem in his mind could not cross over the circle of the “egg” no matter how active it was. Even when the two horn flame was at its fiercest, it still failed to exceed the circle.
It was more likely that the energy absorbed by the fire crystal played a supporting role, which could speed up the recovery, instead of enhancing, because the totem could not play a dominating role.
Putting down the animal skin volume and rubbing his eyebrows, Shao Xuan was thinking about what on earth the stone was made of?
At this time, Caesar came to him with a wooden box in his mouth. The wooden box was tied with straw, so Caesar directly bit the rope to hold it.
Inside the wooden box were stone weapons polished by Old Ke recently. Shao Xuan spent much time studying the old volumes. When Old Ke finished polishing some, he let Caesar send them to him.
Taking the wooden box, Shao Xuan patted Caesar’s head, and asked, “I am going to set out again, would you like to follow me?”
Caesar immediately took a step forward, as if saying “Yes”.
Shao Xuan rolled up and put away the animal skin on which he had intended to write something.
If not a accompanying hound as described in the old volume, then we will just use a wolf.