Jack London

THE ACORN-PLANTER

A California Forest Play

Avia Artis

2021

ISBN: 978-83-8226-521-7

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Argument

In the morning of the world, while his tribe

makes its camp for the night in a grove, Red
Cloud, the first man of men, and the first man
of the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the duty
of life, which duty is to make life more abundant.
The Shaman, or medicine man, sings of
foreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, who
commands in war, sings that war is the only
way to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirming
that the way of life is the way of the acorn-
planter, and that whoso slays one man slays
the planter of many acorns. Red Cloud wins
the Shaman and the people to his contention.

After the passage of thousands of years, again
in the grove appear the Nishinam. In Red
Cloud, the War Chief, the Shaman, and the
Dew-Woman are repeated the eternal figures
of the philosopher, the soldier, the priest, and
the woman--types ever realizing themselves
afresh in the social adventures of man. Red
Cloud recognizes the wrecked explorers as
planters and life-makers, and is for treating
them with kindness. But the War Chief and
the idea of war are dominant The Shaman
joins with the war party, and is privy to the
massacre of the explorers.

A hundred years pass, when, on their seasonal
migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in
the grove. They still live, and the war formula
for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence
of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are
flooding into California from north, south, east,
and west--the English, the Americans, the
Spaniards, and the Russians. The massacre by
the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying,
recognizes the white men as brother acorn-planters,
the possessors of the superior life-formula
of which he had always been a protagonist.

In the Epilogue, or Apotheosis, occur the
celebration of the death of war and the triumph
of the acorn-planters.

Prologue

Planned To Be Sung By Efficient Singers
Accompanied By A Capable Orchestra

Time. In the morning of the world.

Scene. A forest hillside where great trees stand with wide
spaces between. A stream flows from a spring that bursts
out of the hillside. It is a place of lush ferns and brakes,
also, of thickets of such shrubs as inhabit a redwood forest
floor. At the left, in the open level space at the foot of the
hillside, extending out of sight among the trees, is visible a
portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary
camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing
about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies
and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie
about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young
women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed
about their camp tasks. A number of older women are
pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An
old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the
hillside. All wear moccasins and are skin-clad, primitive,
in their garmenting. Neither iron nor woven cloth occurs
in the weapons and gear.

{Shaman}
(Looking up hillside.)
Red Cloud is late.

{Old Man}
(After inspection of hillside.)
He has chased the deer far. He is patient.
In the chase he is patient like an old man.

{Shaman}
His feet are as fleet as the deer's.

{Old Man}
(Nodding.)
And he is more patient than the deer.

{Shaman}
(Assertively, as if inculcating a lesson.)
He is a mighty chief.

{Old Man}
(Nodding.)
His father was a mighty chief. He is like to
his father.

{Shaman}
(More assertively.)
He is his father. It is so spoken. He is
his father's father. He is the first man, the
first Red Cloud, ever born, and born again, to
chiefship of his people.

{Old Man}
It is so spoken.

{Shaman}
His father was the Coyote. His mother was
the Moon. And he was the first man.

{Old Man}
(Repeating.)
His father was the Coyote. His mother was
the Moon. And he was the first man.

{Shaman}
He planted the first acorns, and he is very
wise.

{Old Man}
(Repeating.)
He planted the first acorns, and he is very
wise.

(Cries from the women and a turning of
faces. Red Cloud appears among his
hunters descending the hillside. All
carry spears, and bows and arrows.
Some carry rabbits and other small
game. Several carry deer)

PLAINT OF THE NISHINAM

Red Cloud, the meat-bringer!
Red Cloud, the acorn-planter!
Red Cloud, first man of the Nishinam!
Thy people hunger.
Far have they fared.
Hard has the way been.
Day long they sought,
High in the mountains,
Deep in the pools,
Wide 'mong the grasses,
In the bushes, and tree-tops,
Under the earth and flat stones.
Few are the acorns,
Past is the time for berries,
Fled are the fishes, the prawns and the grasshoppers,
Blown far are the grass-seeds,
Flown far are the young birds,
Old are the roots and withered.
Built are the fires for the meat.
Laid are the boughs for sleep,
Yet thy people cannot sleep.
Red Cloud, thy people hunger.

{Red Cloud}
(Still descending.)
Good hunting! Good hunting!

{Hunters}
Good hunting! Good hunting!

(Completing the descent, Red Cloud
motions to the meat-bearers. They throw
down their burdens before the women,
who greedily inspect the spoils.)

MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM

Meat that is good to eat,
Tender for old teeth,
Gristle for young teeth,
Big deer and fat deer,
Lean meat and fat meat,
Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone,
Liver and heart.
Food for the old men,
Life for all men,
For women and babes.
Easement of hunger-pangs,
Sorrow destroying,
Laughter provoking,
Joy invoking,
In the smell of its smoking
And its sweet in the mouth.

(The younger women take charge of the meat,
and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.)

(Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders
and watches them with pleasure.
All group about him, the Shaman to the
fore, and hang upon his every action, his
every utterance.)

{Red Cloud}
The heart of the acorn is good?

{First Old Woman}
(Nodding.)
It is good food.

{Red Cloud}
When you have pounded and winnowed and
washed away the bitter.

{Second Old Woman}
As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the
world was very young and thou wast the first man.

{Red Cloud}
It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good.

{Shaman}
It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns
and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the
Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the
tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew
of the morning.

(He nods a signal to the Old Man.)

{Old Man}
In the famine in the old time,
When the old man was a young man,
When the heavens ceased from raining,
When the grasslands parched and withered,
When the fishes left the river,
And the wild meat died of sickness,
In the tribes that knew not acorns,
All their women went dry-breasted,
All their younglings chewed the deer-hides,
All their old men sighed and perished,
And the young men died beside them,
Till they died by tribe and totem,
And o'er all was death upon them.
Yet the Nishinam unvanquished,
Did not perish by the famine.
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud gave them!
Oh, the acorns Red Cloud taught them
How to store in willow baskets
'Gainst the time and need of famine!

{Shaman}
(Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has
nodded approbation, turning to Red
Cloud.)

Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of
life which is the song of the acorn.

{Red Cloud}
(Making ready to begin)
And which is the song of woman, O Shaman.

{Shaman}
(Hushing the people to listen, solemnly)
He sings with his father's lips, and with the
lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time
and men.

SONG OF THE FIRST MAN

{Red Cloud}
I am Red Cloud,
The first man of the Nishinam.
My father was the Coyote.
My mother was the Moon.
The Coyote danced with the stars,
And wedded the Moon on a mid-summer night
The Coyote is very wise,
The Moon is very old,
Mine is his wisdom,
Mine is her age.
I am the first man.
I am the life-maker and the father of life.
I am the fire-bringer.
The Nishinam were the first men,
And they were without fire,
And knew the bite of the frost of bitter nights.
The panther stole the fire from the East,
The fox stole the fire from the panther,
The ground squirrel stole the fire from the fox,
And I, Red Cloud, stole the fire from the ground squirrel.
I, Red Cloud, stole the fire for the Nishinam,
And hid it in the heart of the wood.
To this day is the fire there in the heart of the wood.
I am the Acorn-Planter.
I brought down the acorns from heaven.
I planted the short acorns in the valley.
I planted the long acorns in the valley.
I planted the black-oak acorns that sprout, that sprout!
I planted the sho-kum and all the roots of the ground.
I planted the oat and the barley, the beaver-tail grass-nut,
The tar-weed and crow-foot, rock lettuce and ground lettuce,
And I taught the virtue of clover in the season of blossom,
The yellow-flowered clover, ball-rolled in its yellow dust.
I taught the cooking in baskets by hot stones from the fire,
Took the bite from the buckeye and soap-root
By ground-roasting and washing in the sweetness of water,
And of the manzanita the berry I made into flour,
Taught the way of its cooking with hot stones in sand pools,
And the way of its eating with the knobbed tail of the deer.
Taught I likewise the gathering and storing,
The parching and pounding
Of the seeds from the grasses and grass-roots;
And taught I the planting of seeds in the Nishinam home-camps,
In the Nishinam hills and their valleys,
In the due times and seasons,
To sprout in the spring rains and grow ripe in the sun.

{Shaman}
Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

{The People}
Hail, Red Cloud, the first man!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our food in the world!

{Shaman}
Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

{The People}
Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world!

{Shaman}
Who gavest us the law of family!

{The People}
Who gavest us the law of family!

{Shaman}
The law of tribe!

{The People}
The law of tribe!

{Shaman}
The law of totem!

{The People}
The law of totem!

{Shaman}
And madest us strong in the world among men!

{The People}
And madest us strong in the world among men!

{Red Cloud}
Life is good, O Shaman, and I have sung but
half its song. Acorns are good. So is woman
good. Strength is good. Beauty is good. So is
kindness good. Yet are all these things without
power except for woman. And by these things
woman makes strong men, and strong men make
for life, ever for more life.

{War Chief}
(With gesture of interruption that causes
remonstrance from the Shaman but which
Red Cloud acknowledges.)

I care not for beauty. I desire strength in
battle and wind in the chase that I may kill my
enemy and run down my meat.

THE REST OF THE TEXT IS AVAILABLE IN FULL VERSION.

Act I

TEXT AVAILABLE IN FULL VERSION.

Act II

TEXT AVAILABLE IN FULL VERSION.

Epilogue

TEXT AVAILABLE IN FULL VERSION.

Credits

Jack London

THE ACORN-PLANTER

Cover design: Avia Artis

Picture of Jack London was used in the cover design.

Picture by: Genthe Arnold

All rights for this edition reserved.

©Avia Artis 2021