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A Glacial Refugium
Tom Ball
It might have been 40 000 B.C. Surrounded by ice on either side of the huge valley for years now the tribe had lost all contact with the outside.
There were memories of a better time when the climate was warmer, and the tribe happier and more numerous than the present 19. Stories abounded; though they were becoming more and more distant from what they all knew to be the truth....
The shaman was believed to be dying, and today he’d called for an assembly outside his hut. It was bitterly cold, yet the shaman had commanded them to build a great blaze. The shaman spoke “Madness parallels the real, it is as raw potential untamed like a wild fire. The only consolation we have is what ought to have been... and with that the ailing shaman hurled himself into the flames, and died in contortions, stunning the onlookers.
This time the madness was infectious and several men grabbed burning logs and ran about. Then one of them began to set fire to the huts. People started screaming, some men moved to stop him from burning the huts. Then another hurled himself into the fire.
In the end the tribe dispersed into several groups which fled the madness in different directions, but the storm was fierce, and a few days later the tribe was no more.
Strange, but true the whole thing took place in 2100 A.D; they were a group of extreme traditionalists, in the manner of Rousseau, who had decided to get back to nature. This arctic tribe lasted exactly 50 years; by the time they went extinct none of the original settlers were with them; the youth of the tribe hadn’t even been told of the “outside world”. So they didn’t even know enough to call for help.
