Of Ingwë Ingweron by heget

Of the Hunters of the First Tribe

The first tribe of Speakers, Kwendî, were never large in number, and their choices would keep their tribe small. In this time all elves lived near the shores of the Great Mother Lake that had birthed them, Cuiviénen, and there did most remain. Yet some chose to venture away from shore, for in that time all elves were curious. But curiosity and hunger drew the people of the first tribe away from the safety of the lake more than all other elves and thus sealed their fate.

The first tribe was the Minyar, led by the First to awaken of all the Speakers, and Imin regretted that his people were never as many as those of other tribes. Tata was the leader of the second tribe, from which they were known as the Tatyar, and their numbers were great enough that more than one village was needed to hold their numbers. Of the third tribe Enel was their chief, though so many were the third tribe that added together the first and second could not equal. The Nelyar thus had many villages spread across the shores of the Great Mother Lake. The Tatyar people with flat dark hair and pale skin delighted in all curiosities and new knowledge, and the third tribe found the sounds of water sweetest and thus clamored around the shore and paddled into the lake itself.

But the people of bronze and golden skin, with hair that shone light and golden when the great camp fires were lit, they were fearless. They were first to see the meat of animal kills and use the gift of voice to shout and frighten the scavengers away. They were first to decide to emulate hunters like the great cats and the wolves, to leave the echoing water and run through the fir forest and dark plains in search of prey. With the clear voices and the use of song the Minyar Kwendîcalled out the plans. With newly invented words they called the ideas of running ahead, of circling the prey and herding it, and of throwing from many hands as if one.

No other creature looked like them, walked on two feet and had hands that could grasp and throw and make. On the first hunt it was rocks to scatter the animals, like they had done to the other scavengers to claim old kills, and sharpened spears from branches and young saplings around their home. A Tatyar would find a way to lash the knapped stone scrapers the Kwendî were beginning to use as knives to make a sharper spear-point atop the wooden javelin. On the second hunt this spear would prove superior. The Minyar would learn to make these stone knives, but most traded with the Tatyar instead. The second tribe had not the skills of bodily strength, the understanding of animals both prey and predator, the songs and strategies of how to successfully hunt the best game. Better the Tatyar craftsmen spend their time on the spearheads and knives, for their hands were skilled to it and familiar, and the Minyar to the long hunts. Thus no time was wasted, and true talents matched of crafter and hunter. This was said to be the wisdom of the customs of the Speakers, the Kwendî, and none questioned it.

The Nelyar fished. In truth they accomplished more than that, for their careful tending of the water reeds and plants growing on the narrow rich land between shore and the surrounding woods was the beginning of agriculture. The Nelyar would tend the reeds to make woven goods like clothing and baskets and later the walls of their houses. Tubers and edible greens they also farmed, beginning to control the environment instead of the other way around.

The Minyar grew strong on the rich red meat of prey, drinking the thick blood and sucking the bone marrow. They would offer pieces of heart and liver and lung to the Tatyar craftsmen who gave them the spearheads. Not just stone, but tools and art of many materials became the province of the second tribe. Clay from the lakeshore baked in fire pits became hard enough for bricks and pots, and skilled hands learned to make many shapes and patterns. Once enough deer were killed and antlers gathered, bone weapons became common. Even the Tatyar children would expend their curiosity by hunting through the woods after rutting season, looking for discarded antlers to make into new tools and ornaments. Thus the character of the Noldor, of what the second tribe would value most, was given its foundations.

But to leave the sight and hearing range of Cuiviénen, to run after the great deer and horse and boar, was dangerous. Not only was such big game dangerous to the hunters, where a kick or tusk of an animal even fatally captured could injury an unwary Minyar tracker, but the Kwendî were not the only hunters on the plains. Great beasts, monsters of horn and ivory dying the earth with blood^[1], also competed with the Minyar for prey, or saw these Kwendî as food. Hunters, both male and female (for in those days and indeed forever after for the first tribe saw no difference of gender in the skill of a runner to defeat the swift deer or an arm that could hurl a spear^[2], were lost to the violence, and thus the first tribe was never able to grow in number like their kin who did not venture into danger.

And the best illustration of this is the story of the mother and father of those we would later name Ingwë and his sister Indis.

The father of he who would be called Ingwë Ingweron was a hunter of the Minyar, one of the first pairs to awaken but not among the first found by Imin. He was especially regarded among his tribe for swiftness of foot. His was the untiring energy to run after swift prey like the small deer and striped-back dun horses. His first name had been to liken this speed to that of the wind, though there was a time this name of the father of Ingwë Ingweron was not spoken. When Indis was born her brother told her the true name of their father, Alakô the rushing wind, told her that she must hold the name in her heart, let not the other tales displace it.

She that woke at the side of swift-footed Alakô was his wife and a hunter likewise skilled, whose arms with spear or spear-thrower had no equal. She was called by the strength of her shoulders and lovely arms. Among the first people of her tribe it was said that one always knew who cast the spear that flew the farthest and truest, for it would be hers. Maktâmê, by those arms skilled in wielding weapons she would be named.

Fates are cruel.

Around the great lake called Cuiviénen for a span of much constant walking was forest with trees dark and tall. But to persevere would take a hunting party through the tangle of giant firs, primitive pines, and swaying ferns to open plains dotted periodically by single slender trees. Here the horses and many species of deer, elk, and bison grazed and ran. Here were the packs of wolves and hyena, the lion prides, and other predators which hunted such beasts. Here the Minyar crouched in the long grasses, watching carefully and learning the tricks of hunting beasts, of how they could run down the deer, horses, and bison. The boy that would become Ingwë Ingweron was too young to join such a hunt. He was left in the village to wait the sunless days for his tribe to return from these ventures. When the time for the hunting came, the boy that would become Ingwë helped his mother gather the spears and spear-throwers. At the shores of the lake he filled the waterskins, and from the storing mats he selected large pieces of jerky to sustain the hunters on their journey. Solemnly he painted the lines of camouflage and ritual paint across his father’s body and face, frowning as his father laughed from the sensation. His father and mother each drew a line around the boy’s jaw and over his beating heart, telling the boy that when he grew taller and stronger he would be permitted to join a hunt, but not this one. The boy wiped at the paint and reminded them to check the lashings of their spears. No fear was in his heart, only pride and eagerness. His parents were great hunters, would be the first to bring down a deer or elk, and his stomach rumbled at the anticipation of such delicious meat.

It was not to be.

Swift-foot Alakô ran, two members of his tribe including his wife Maktâmê trailing behind him, as they harried the young buck they had singled out from the herd. One spear cast from him, the others from his helpers, all the while laughing and singing, for their skill in felling prey had grown mighty indeed. They thought themselves masters of these plains. The deer crashed to the earth bleeding and exhausted, spears hanging from its flanks like swaying saplings sprouting from the earth. But the hunters had grown too arrogant, too incautious in the darkness of those early days. The man knelt beside the fallen prey, all his attention on the knife in his hand and ending the struggling cries of the dying animal. The thick stinking blood spurted over himself and the earth as he ran the blade across the throat. His back was turned. He did not see the beast that drew near, attracted by the smell of blood and dying noises. A solitary hunter, something much like a leopard, leapt down from the trees that stood like islands among the sea of grass and attacked Alakô. A creature made mad and full of bloodlust from Melkor's taint savaged the elf and dying animal both. The man screamed as his flesh was rent, muscles of his leg opened to the bones, claws that raked across his face permanently removing an eye, and arms and hands also badly injured. All the while he screamed.

The hunters drew back in fear, all but the woman Maktâmê. She rushed forward with spear in hand, trying to drive the beast away from the mangled thing that was now her husband, attempting to save him. She was able to force the beast off, but not before sharp fang and tooth scored debilitating wounds to her arms, those strong and famous arms desperately trying to pry the man away.

But the bodies of the elves healed swiftly from even most horrific injuries, spirits fending off diseases and agents of rot, clinging to bodies even when hope was slim. ^[3]

The man once named Alakô survived this attack, and also his wife, though her arms no longer proved useful for hunting, and one would hang uselessly from her side. Maktâmê of the arms, they would still call her, but arms that brought her fear instead of envy, Skarnâ-Maktê. The hunting party returned with no meat, carrying only the bodies of these two Kwendî which had once be the pride of their membership. The boy who would become Ingwë watched his parents brought home, the blackness of despair finding lodging and lordship in his heart. As the few rudimentary healers of the Kwendî, equipped with their early ignorance, worked to close the gaping dreadful wounds, all found it a surprise that the man who once ran so swiftly even survived. But this greatness of strength was not praised, for from that point on he was severely crippled, a figure of fear and scorn, only able to hobble around the camps of the Minyar half-blind. Thus he was seen as useless to his tribe. In those early days the Minyar valued strength and effectiveness towards their continued survival as a people, and the man could no longer offer any. The boy who would be Ingwë watched as his once laughing and talkative father grew cold and silent. He had once thought his father too silly, too often smiling when there did not seem a reason to be. Even before the accident, the boy who would grow to be Ingwë Ingweron had been a solemn and serious child, wishing to make things with a gravitas that brought his father to tears of laughter. The now lonely boy regretted the negative thoughts he once had about his father’s smiles. No more smiles would come easily to this family.

Mocking names the injured man was rechristened by the tribe, names of worthlessness and scorn and fright for the dreadfulness of his appearance, the frailty he had become. Skarwô and Ulgundô and Khyannô and Nukottô were the names the man was called. Never would the man acknowledge these names, nor his wife or son, but they could not unhear them.

The boy's mother grew bitter from her days spent tending his broken father, unable to hurl the spears, the lacework of puckered silver scars making a mockery of beauty she was named for. Her bitterness fed also on the scorn upon her and her husband. And the boy himself grew grim and quiet.

A figure of ill-omen to his tribe, the child of weaklings he was called by the Minyar and their proud chieftain, as if the earlier strength of his parents was forgotten. Sullen, they called the boy, for he was. The tribe renamed him the unspeaking one, Ûkwendô. By this act they highlighted the powerlessness of his standing among his people, denied him his personhood among the Kwendî. Little was expected of him, only that he would remain a dead weight among his tribe much as his mother and father were.

This child of Alakô and Maktâmê had been the eighth born to the small tribe of the Minyar, an auspicious number. Once he had been the welcome child, the lucky one, a child with greatness expected. He that would be Ingwë Ingweron did not forget this.

After her son was born, Maktâmê shared nursing duties with another hunter who gave birth a few months before her, freeing both women to join the hunting parties as they alternated duties. This fellow hunter's son was Asmalô, seventh born of the Minyar, and he grew to be a typical hunter, of gregarious smile but swift to snark at those that annoyed him. This other woman and her son had once been as a brother and second mother to the boy that would be Ingwë. Asmalô was his first friend, but this broken bond was overshadowed by later and more portentous friendships. While they that had been named Alakô and Maktâmê recovered from their horrific injuries, Asmalô’s mother had been the one to clean their wounds and force food into their son’s hands. Afterwards, when it was clear the limit of recovery, Asmalô and his mother shunned the friends they had once so highly praised, speaking the same harsh and cruel names. To his once friend and companion Asmalô spoke the name Ûkwendô, and so the two no longer played together or shared meals, until the discovery that changed all.

Before, he that would be Ingwë wanted to be a hunter alongside with his friend and eventually marry another Minyar hunter, as that was expected custom. His favorite part of the hunts had been the painting of hunters before they left, the ceremony complete with speeches from Imin Ingweron. Now he avoided the ceremonies that sent the Minyar hunting parties away. He did not join Asmalô for the boy’s first hunt, run by his side and hurl spears, or stand beside him to hear the chieftain speak and accept paint and blessings. Before the accident, the boy that would become Ingwë liked to pretend to be the chieftain, sticking stray feathers in his hair and making proclamations to his fellow toddlers. They would all giggle, and their mothers would pick them up and tickle them, Maktâmê kissing her son’s cheek and pulling out the feathers with her teeth. Imin and Iminyë would watch with bemused patronizing fondness, and she now called Skarnâ-Maktê recalled with pride how her chieftain once praised her son’s powerful voice. “You are made for greatness, my son,” she told the boy that would be Ingwë, and she never stopped telling him this, even in the blackest despair of their lives.

Now a pariah, the boy that would become Ingwë, the boy that others called Ûkwendô, learned he must fend for himself, to hunt and forage for food, and discover how to go to the camps of the Tatyar and barter for goods on his own. He could not depend on his parents or the charity of the other Minyar, not even the boy he once called brother. Nor would his pride allow it. He could not allow fear to root inside him, or the stings of sorrow and scorn cripple his feet as well. The boy did not call himself Ûkwendô; he was the singular one who dared the forests without a companion. He knew even then that he was Ingwë. Tall and strong and cunning he grew, but few among his own people had eyes to note it. Asmalô watched but never approached. The young man who gathered knowledge on subjects wide, but who was rarely asked to share in it, this was he that would be Ingwë.

As the hunters and warriors bragged of feats and challenged each other in the ritual circle of the tribe, one stood silent. One did not cheer as Imin and Iminyë’s son wrestled another to the ground or Asmalô learned how to use a piece of bark as buckler shield against spears. As others watched proud warriors fight to gain honor and fame, one would leave secretly the village of the Minyar. The young man that would be Ingwë was rare among his tribe to delight in silence of others’ voices, to prefer the wind and the fire rings of other villages. He built tentative friendships among the other two tribes, dared to what the other Minyar refused. The boy that the Minyar called Ûkwendô had few willing to admit a shared acquaintance among his own tribe, but many knew him of the Tatyar and Nelyar.

Strongest of his bonds, long celebrated in the history of the people to come, was to the young men that would be Finwë of the Noldor and Elwë of the Lindar. Elwë of the third tribe had visited the Tatyar village in the company of his parents, looking to trade cooking vessels, fish, and sharp tools. While there Elwë befriended the young craftsman, Finwë, and so would often return to that village or Finwë travel to his. Later another young man would come eager to exchange goods for a knife and be spotted by tall Elwë. Elwë would invite over this fellow outsider, and thus the young man that would be called Ingwë was adopted into the friendship of Finwë and Elwë. Older and steadier, the one that would be Ingwë humored their lightness and easy prattle. He appreciated that neither boy could bring themselves to call the Minyar youth by the cruel name. Instead they called him the Kwendê for jest of his taciturn stares. One who hunted alone for food to support both his mother and father, his friends marvelled at the older boy’s skill and considered themselves fortunate in be in his confidence. The man who would be Ingwë was in truth the greatest of the Minyar. But no totems of victories decorated him, for no one else believed there was any honor to be gained by challenging the son of the scarred ones.

Chapter End Notes

^[1] “ the evil of Melkor and the blight of his hatred flowed out thence beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and dyed the earth with blood.” (Silm 29 - “Of the Beginning of Days”)

^[2] “In all such things, not concerned with the bringing forth of children, ….the men and women of the Eldar are equal ... no matters which among the Eldar only a ner can think or do, or others with which only a nis is concerned... there was less difference in strength and speed between elven-men an elven-women that had not borne child than is seen among mortals.” (HoMe X - “Laws and Customs of the Eldar”)

^[3] "[The elves] were tenacious therefore of life ...even from the first days protecting their bodies from many ills and assaults (such as disease), and healing them swiftly of injuries, so that they recovered from wounds that would have proved fatal to Men."(HoMe X)