The Legend of Beginnings

​          In the time of the Great Before, there were Seven Sisters. Their father was a hunter of great renown, and their mother a priestess of the gods.
          In that time, women were as men, free to live as they chose as long as they harmed none. The tribes roamed freely throughout the lands, traveling from one hunting ground to the next, feeding their young, teaching them the ways of the Great Ones who had gone on to the next realm, and living in peace with one another. The land was revered, never used for long, and the People moved on before doing it harm.
          Mother and Father worked together, protecting the Seven Sisters and all the People from the savages who built great cities to the gods, but were very evil, for they chained their women and treated them as slaves, and raped the land rather than renewing it.
          The People continued their ways for many years, always watching the savages, but never interfering. The women of the People were wary of the savages and avoided them, for they knew their freedom would be lost if the savages found them. The men, however, were seduced by the savages. "Their ways are easier," the men would say. "They are settled with livestock and crops, never fearing that their children will go hungry." Father spoke to them, saying, "An provides the wild grains and the fowl and the fish in the Great Sea. Our children do not go hungry now."
          The men persisted. "They have great cities which shelter them from the winds and the sun, and protect them from the wild men who live in the Beyond Places." Father spoke to them again, saying, "Ki provides us with the trees and the caves. What need have we of shelter other than this? We are strong, together. The wild men are no threat to us."
          But the men did not believe. They grew discontent, roaming from place to place, in spite of the bounty given by An and Ki. They saw the ease in which the savages lived, their farms worked by slaves, and their children cared for by women who covered their eyes and hair from the sight of others, women who cowered in front of their husbands, women who were not allowed the Bow and the Spear. Evil crept into the hearts of the men of the People, and envy, for they began to believe that they should have land and slaves, and that the women of the People should be covered and not free.
          The women of the People saw the envy in their husbands' eyes. They went to Mother and shared their fears, but Mother did not believe that the men of the People could ever lose their faith in An and Ki. She did not believe that they would ever treat their wives as slaves. And so it came to be that the People were silently divided and a great unease lived among them.
          The men of the people met together in secret, beyond the reaches of Mother and Father and their wives. They argued amongst themselves about the path they must take, but in the end, all agreed. One night, as they had planned, the men of the People bound their wives as they slept and covered them with the long clothes of the savages. They crept out to the resting place of Mother and Father and slaughtered them as they slept.
          But as they did so, they awoke the Seven Sisters, who slept nearby. The Sisters watched in horror as their parents were killed and their bodies burned by the men of the People. They fled their People's camp, not trusting the men to treat them kindly, not knowing what had happened to the women of the People that they would allow their husbands to act thusly.
          The Sisters wandered for many days, afraid, alone, and ravaged by hunger and thirst. An had abandoned them, they thought, to allow Mother and Father to be killed and the People broken. And so, they wandered. After seven days, they came to an oasis, where strange four-legged creatures drank and played. The Sisters rested there, and grieved, and healed. The oasis became their Sanctuary, and the four-legged creatures their friends.
          The Sisters learned that the creatures were useful. They could be trained and ridden, and the Sisters spent long hours learning with the creatures what each could do separately and together. The Sisters returned to their training, and made Bow and Spear, but they never roamed from the oasis, for it provided their every need: fish from the waters, fowl from the reed, and tubers, fruits, and nuts from the vegetation. For companionship, the Sisters had each other and the creatures, but though they were lonely for the friendship of the People, they did not dare stray from their Sanctuary. And so, seven years passed for the Sisters, as they trained and played with their creatures.
          At the end of that time, the eldest amongst them dreamed of the People, of how the men had chained their wives, who had become little more than chattel to be bought and sold at the whim of their husbands. She dreamed of the place where the men had settled, of the land they had claimed and denuded, and of the way in which the Sisters could revenge the deaths of Mother and Father.
          In the morning, when she awoke, she shared her dream with her sisters, and they all agreed on what must be done. They asked the creatures to come with them and brought Bow and Spear, water and food. They traveled seven days and seven nights. In the end, their journey took them back to the place of their parents, for the men in their haste and laziness had settled not far from there and built a small city of brick and mud where other men of the savage races, upon hearing of the fertile lands, had brought their families to live. 
          The Sisters watched and waited, and on the next night, they crept into the city and freed the women. In their anger, the Seven Sisters killed the men of the People as they lay sleeping and chased all the other men away. The women who were not of the People were given the choice: freedom, always, but the chance to join the women of the People and live with them, train and hunt in the ways of the People, or strike out to make their own way. Some women left, but many chose to stay. Soon after, the women of the People, led by the Seven Sisters, set out to their old hunting grounds, happy and free from the burden of slavery imposed by their husbands.
          But the blood and spirits of those men cried out to An for justice, and An, seeing what the Sisters had done, cursed them all to live eternally without love or kindness, forever shunned by men, and without the ability to bear sons. The Seven Sisters cried out at the injustice, for had the men not killed Mother and Father and enslaved the women? An would not listen, but Ki, seeing that the Sisters were right, that An had imposed an unjust punishment, tempered the curse so that if a woman found love, the curse might be broken, but only if she submitted to the will of her lover. The Sisters thanked Ki for her mercy, although it was many, many years before they and the women of the People sought out the company of men.
          This was the Beginning. Remember it well, Children of the People.

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Excerpts from Academic Analyses of the Legend

          ...and because of the numerous people who have had a role in translating fragments of the Legend, it is important to continually reassess those translations, particularly when new information comes to light.
          For example, the current accepted translation emphasizes the People's harmony with the land, juxtaposing it against the savages' harsh treatment of the environment. Such an attitude can clearly be traced to the "back-to-the-land" movement of the 1970s, which in turn has its roots in the pastoral ideologies of the late 19th century.
          Recent archaeological evidence suggests that the People were indeed hunter gatherers, but their effect on their local environments cannot be ascertained based on what is currently known of them...

                    --Maya Bellegarde, internal memo to Director Rebecca Upton, Institute for Early Cultural Studies, dated 20
                       March 2008, re: Translation and interpretation flaws in the Legend of Beginnings.