An Excerpt From:

Around the World with a Million Kids

Adventures of an Online Explorer

John Fox

4869 Main Street P.O. Box 2200

Manchester Center, Vermont 05255 www.northshire.com/printondemand.php

© 2008 by John Fox

Cover design by Eighthourday

www.eighthourday.com

Cover photographs by David McLain/Aurora

ISBN: 978-1-60571-011-2 Library of Congress Control Number: PCN 2008907122

Building Community, One Book at a Time

This book was printed at the Northshire Bookstore, a family-owned, independent bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, since 1976. We are committed to excellence in bookselling. The Northshire Bookstore’s mission is to serve as a resource for information, ideas, and entertainment while honoring the needs of customers, staff, and community.

Printed in the United States of America

using an Espresso Book Machine from On Demand Books

For Amelia and Aidan

Don’t take my word for it. Go find out for yourselves.

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xiii

1 :: AfricaQuest 1 The Mystery of Human Origins

2 :: AsiaQuest 26 The Fabled Journey of Marco Polo

3 :: AmericaQuest 47 Mysteries of the Ancient Anasazi

4 :: IslandQuest 62 Secrets of Longevity

5 :: AustraliaQuest 68 Aboriginal Culture and Wisdom

6 :: MayaQuest 82 Collapse of the Ancient Maya

7 :: AmazonQuest 95 Rainforest in Danger

8 :: GreeceQuest 115 Origins of Western Civilization

9 :: ColumbusQuest 141 The Trail of the Great Explorer

Note on Sources 169

CHAPTER 1

AfricaQuest

The Mystery of Human Origins

AfricaQuest was my inaugural Quest – an

epic journey by mountain bike through

East Africa’s Rift Valley, from the parched

Turkana desert of northern Kenya to the

lakes of Tanzania. Our mission was to

explore the mystery of human origins in

the region known as the cradle of

humankind. For two months we explored

ancient fossil sites, met with

anthropologists, primatologists, and wildlife

biologists, and came to befriend the great

diversity of people – Turkana, Samburu,

Pokot, Maasai, Hadzabe – who still call this

great valley home.

Best: Biking 40 mph down the Rift Valley

escarpment with a laptop in my pannier

Worst: Dining on rotten kudu with the

Hadza tribe

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Avoiding Crocs, Finding Fossils

Lake Turkana, Kenya – As the team archaeologist, I was less than thrilled when our online collaborators sent us to Lake Turkana’s Central Island here in northern Kenya. Part of the reason was that I was secretly pulling for Kanapoi, a famous site where paleontologists found fossils of the earliest known human ancestor.

The other reason is that Central Island is famous, supposedly, for being the home to 20,000 crocodiles! Some of these crocodiles are reported to weigh 2,200 pounds and to have a taste for human flesh. I should have figured that kids would vote for us to go where we’d be eaten.

We spent four long days getting there, traveling through hot, thorny desert, eating bad food, and trying not to collapse from exhaustion. On the shores of Lake Turkana, we had to pay $200 for a forty-minute boat ride over 10-foot waves that made us all feel like puking.

The whole way there, we thought of those crocs and whether or not we should be going to Lake Turkana at all. We had visions of seething reptiles, just waiting for AfricaQuest appetizers. When we stepped off the boat, we were faced with a Martian-like landscape with little more than rocks and boulders to focus on.

We climbed up to two crater lakes, watched some distant flamingos, and hiked down. Hot, tired, and a little bored, we went for a swim. Only then did I spot a big old crocodile the size of a kitchen table floating along, too close for comfort! Needless to say, my swim was over.

Our trip to Central Island showed that sometimes the most interesting things on expeditions happen in between destinations. On our way to visit the crocodiles, our Turkana guide, Justus, took us to a fossil site where he helped dig up fossils of our earliest ancestors. This was a

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highlight for me, since I found four million year old fish, pig, and crocodile fossils!

I’m not the only one who has found fossils in this region. Recently, scientists found the jaw and leg bones here of a fellow called Australopithecus anamensis, which means “southern ape of the lake.” To the average person, these bones look pretty insignificant, like upside-down puzzle pieces. But in the hands of paleoanthropologists these scraps of tooth and bone come to life and tell amazing stories.

One of the paleoanthropologists who have been weaving these stories is Louise Leakey, a Kenyan paleontologist. Last week we talked with Louise Leakey before we left for the Turkana region. At 26, she is the latest in the most famous of fossil families. Her grandfather, father, and mother have made some of the most amazing discoveries in this field of study.

As a kid, Louise spent a lot of time running around in ancient fossil beds and getting bored. She thought of rebelling against her fossil-hunting folks and doing something else, but she gave in to her true passion: old bones.

The “southern ape of the lake” is thought to be our first ancestor, an ape that walked on two legs rather than four. Hairy, four feet tall, with long arms and short legs – this ape was no genius. But, by walking on two legs he took a step toward becoming human.

Why was walking on two legs such a big deal? Well, our earliest ancestors couldn’t carry anything in their hands. They would not have been able to use their hands to write, throw a ball, or click the mouse on your computer before they became bipedal. On the open grasslands near Lake Turkana four million years ago, walking on two legs became the key to survival for our furry forefathers.

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Over the next six weeks, as we cycle down the Rift Valley, we’ll also take a 4 million-year trip through time. We’ll visit ancient fossil sites and meet interesting characters. For example, Paranthropus, an “ape-man,” looked a bit like a Klingon from Star Trek, with a bony ridge down the middle of his head to support huge jaw muscles. You’ll help me explore the factors that led to our evolution as a species from ape to Einstein. What were the key stages in this process of becoming human? Was it the use of tools? Language? Art?

Finally, we’ll look at a question that’s really important to all of us, and especially to you folks who can still count your age on two hands (while standing on two legs!): Where are we heading and what is our future?

Don’t Let Anyone Get Your Goat Lokichar, Kenya – Different cultures have different values. Your priority might be your new pair of Nike Air sneakers. For the Turkana, their animals are everything. Ask a Turkana what his favorite food is and he’ll tell you: goat meat. His favorite drink: goat blood. You want to marry that cute Turkana girl? That’ll be 50 goats, please! A man without goats or cattle or camels in Turkana country is dead meat, plain and simple.

Yesterday, while taking a break from the midday sun, I spotted a lone traveler coming along the road. He appeared as a mirage, fading in and out of heat waves. He stopped before us, an old Turkana man wearing a knit hat with a feather in it, a striped cloak draped over his pencil-thin frame. Like a built-in odometer, his leathery feet and tattered shoes revealed the miles he’d covered.

He had been walking for ten days, and had eaten his last bit of corn meal a week ago. I gave him all I had to

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offer – a melted apple-cinnamon Power Bar – which he promptly devoured. He was on his way to collect a debt of goats, some 60 miles away. Like other Turkana, a people who have thirty different verbs for walking, he thought nothing of covering 120 miles on foot, with only his walking stick, stool, and a plastic pail of murky drinking water. His survival and the survival of his family depended upon getting those goats.

In exchange for the Power Bar, he told me this story: A while ago, a terrible drought forced people to travel

far and wide in search of water and food for their animals. A barefoot traveler bid farewell to his family, tied a rope around the neck of his prize goat and struck off in search of greener pastures.

Along the road, hiding in the thorn bushes, was a hungry thief wearing new shoes. He enviously eyed the traveler’s goat and began to plan how he could steal it. He ran ahead on the path, put one of his shoes out in the middle of the road, and hid again in the bushes. The traveler arrived at the spot and admired the lone shoe. Instead of picking it up, however, he left it behind. He knew that one shoe would do him no good.

The thief retrieved his shoe and again ran ahead of the traveler. This time, he took off the other shoe and put it in the road. Again, he hid in the bushes. The traveler arrived at the spot where the thief was hidden. He was so excited to find the second shoe that he abandoned his goat, left the shoe there and ran back to get the first one! With that, the thief sprang out of the bushes, grabbed his shoe and the goat and headed on his way, whistling happily.

When the traveler realized he’d been tricked, he felt like a fool. He went home to his family, a broken man.

So the question for you to consider is…What are your

priorities? Would you risk something your family thought

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was important so that you could have something flashy or cool? Hippos and Handy Men Lake Baringo, Kenya – I didn’t sleep well last night. Hippos were snorting outside my tent, and the mosquitoes were working overtime to drain my blood. In the middle of the night, I woke to go to my forest toilet, and stepped out of my tent. Six snow-white Vervet monkeys appeared, like angels with tails, enjoying a funky monkey party in the nearby trees.

The morning was spent in a boat stalking hippos, crocodiles, and fish eagles with the team. Inspired by our great finds, I decided to go into the hills in search of an archaeological adventure. I knew there were important human fossil sites near Lake Baringo. Our young boat guides, Simon and Moses, said they knew where the sites were located.

We struck off by bike, pedaled seven miles into the thorns and heat, and came upon some tell-tale trenches left behind by paleontologists. The site was high on a barren ridge looking out over a deep eroding valley of volcanic boulders. Small bone fragments and cornflake-sized scraps of worked stone littered the ground. When the scientists leave a dig site, it is as exciting as an empty baseball stadium – you have to imagine people and action back into the scene.

This is where Dr. Andrew Hill of Yale University found a piece of skull belonging to the earliest true human. Our ancestor was called Homo habilis, nicknamed the “handy man.” The bone Dr. Hill found is about 2 ½ million years old! You know how the handy man, or woman, of your house likes to go out in the garage and tinker with tools?

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Well, Homo habilis was the first of our ancestors to hang out in his prehistoric garage, using tools. Tool use was a major leap in evolution.

Last week, I talked about the importance of walking on two feet. One of the benefits of walking on two feet, rather than four, is that you have your hands free to carry stuff, grab things, pick your nose…whatever. About two and a half million years ago, people began putting their hands to good use by making stone tools.

Figuring out how to make useful cutting tools from scraps of stone took a fair bit of intelligence. As anthropologist Kathy Schick puts it, “Experimenting with different shapes of stone tools represents the earliest form of science.”

First, the “handy man” had to find the right type of stone. It often traveled as far as eight miles to find good volcanic boulders. Then, “handy man” had to know a bit of geometry and physics, so he (or she) could hit the stone in just the right way to get the right shape of tool. He had to imagine what tool he wanted and devise a plan to shape it in the right way.

These are the same thinking skills that engineers now use to build bridges, planes and computers…and it all began here, in the area surrounding Lake Baringo, 2 ½ million years ago!

Why were tools such an important invention? Well, sharp flakes and choppers helped the handy man eat better. He could scavenge meat from dead animals he found as he strolled through the savanna (sounds yummy, huh?). Using his bigger brain and new tools, the handy man could break open an animal bone and eat the fat inside. One bone was a delicacy that would provide an entire day’s calories and nutrition (like a prehistoric Power Bar!).

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There’s a common saying that “you are what you eat.” This was just as true for our distant ancestors as it is for us now. Our big, smart brains use about 20% of our body’s energy, a higher percentage of energy than any other animal’s brain uses. As our brains got bigger, they also got hungrier and needed more and better food to satisfy them.

With better and better tools we were able to get better and better food to eat, which allowed our brains to get bigger, which allowed us to make even better tools and eventually…to speak and communicate.

So, think twice before you eat your next Twinkie! When We Lived Forever Tangul Bei, Kenya – It was one of those days when everything goes wrong. We rolled into the tiny Pokot village of Tangul Bei, searching for food, and found none. Then it rained. The blackest storm clouds I’ve ever seen rolled over the hills and the skies opened onto our heads. The town’s one and only street turned into a muddy streambed. By the time the roads were dry enough to cycle on, it was too dark to continue and we had to look for shelter.

On the very top of the hill, a silver-roofed house with a cross glistened – the Catholic mission. I knew that if I asked for a place to pitch my tent, the mission couldn’t turn me away. So we squished our way up the muddy slopes to the mission on the hill.

When we reached the top of the hill, Father Paul Leyden greeted us from his neat porch. He was looking out over Africa’s misty hills, sipping a drink, and reading a fat book. He took one look at me, with my heavy mountain bike and muddy clothes, and said, “I suppose you’ll be needing a place to stay.”

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He led us to a guest house and a dry camping area. We all slept well and long in our cozy perch high above the valley floor. The next morning, he invited us for a tea, bread, and jam breakfast. We started discussing American politics, but the conversation drifted to the Pokot people.

Father Paul has been living among the Pokot for 18 months. I asked him about the beliefs of the Pokot. After seeing the men with bows and knifes the previous day on the road, I was especially interested in death.

Father Paul told me that, for the Pokot, death is the enemy and everyone is terrified of it. When a man dies, he is buried in silence. Even family members avoid touching the body for fear of contaminating themselves with death.

The Pokot don’t have much sense of life after death, though they do believe in an underworld, where the ancestors live. Termite mounds, which appear on the side of the road like massive sand castles, are believed to be entrances to this underworld. They are places to communicate with relatives who have passed away. Father Paul has even seen locals burning grasses on top of these mounds, making a kind of offering.

According to a Pokot myth, people used to live forever, until they made a terrible mistake:

In the beginning there was no death. This is the story of

how death came into the world. There was once a man known as Leeyio. Leeyio was the

first man made by Tororot, father of the sky. Tororot called Leeyio and said to him, “When a man dies and you bury him, you must remember to say, ‘Man die and come back again, moon die and stay away.’”

Several months passed before anyone died. Eventually a neighbor’s child died and Leeyio was summoned to bury the body. When he took the body outside, he made a

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mistake and said, “Moon die and come back again, man die and stay away.” After that, no man survived death.

A few more months passed, and Leeyio’s own child died. Leeyio took his child’s body outside and said, “Moon die and stay away, man die and come back again.”

On hearing this, Torerot said to Leeyio, “You are too late now. For, through your own mistake, death was born the day your neighbor’s child died.”

That is how death came about. And that is why, to this

day, when a man dies he does not return. But, when the moon dies, it always comes back again.

From Babble to Scrabble

Central Rift Valley, Kenya – “Eck!!” A small male baboon shrieks. He scampers down the rocks, looking over his shoulder. The Incredible Hulk of baboons is behind him.

Dr. Shirley Strum gives a play-by-play commentary, like a TV sportscaster on Monday Night Football. She calls the baboons by name. “Looks like Caterpillar just threatened Wiggle. Wiggle tried to get too close to Rebecca, Caterpillar’s friend.”

“Grunt! Oorgh!” says Caterpillar. “Rebecca’s grooming Caterpillar now. He’s expressing

pleasure – it feels good to be groomed.” Christina, Tom and I stand by, impressed by Dr.

Strum’s knowledge. We watch as the warm morning light creeps over the rocks. Dr. Strum, an anthropologist, has been studying baboon society for over 20 years. She knows each of the baboons by name, and has learned how to read their expressions and behavior. She tells us

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that baboons can’t form words or speak like humans, but they still have ways to communicate how they’re feeling.

Using grunts, screeches, and body language, they can tell each other they are excited, afraid, happy, hungry, or depressed.

Baboons have pretty complicated social lives. Baboons have to cooperate with one other to survive. They need to be able to communicate well to avoid conflict and work together. Not too different from humans...or is it?

The evolution of language was an important step in becoming human. With language, early humans could hunt together, discuss the day’s events, and plan for the days and months ahead. Without language… err! Ungh! Arrh!!

The fact is, only humans use spoken language. Looking at the baboons, I try to imagine the first time a human spoke. What did she say? Probably something like, “My head is itchy.” When did humans first speak? It’s hard to guess when all you have are a bunch of ancient fossils.

Scientists get clues by looking at the insides of fossil skulls. They think that as long ago as 1.5 million years, an early human called Homo erectus might have been able to talk a little. Homo erectus probably even said a few things like, “That’s my handaxe!” But scientists think it wasn’t until the arrival of fully modern man, Homo sapiens, that people made full use of language. If this is true, people were able to tell stories, make jokes, and describe the beauty and dangers of the world around them starting about 100,000 years ago.

What’s keeping those clever baboons from speaking? One factor is their brain size. Baboon brains are larger than the brains of most primates, but a lot smaller than what we’ve got knocking around in our heads. Humans also have the right kind of larynx, or voice box. In non-human mammals, the voice box is high in the neck. Its

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high position limits the ability to form complex sounds and speak. In adult humans, though, the voice box is deep down in the throat. The position of our larynx lets us talk until we’re blue in the face.

As you know, humans are special because we walk on two legs rather than on four. You also now know that walking on two legs freed our hands to make and carry tools. So, it seems that walking and talking are related as key pieces of what makes humans a unique species.

I was thinking of the connection between art and being human while we were hanging with the baboons. I asked Dr. Strum, “Do these baboons have the ability to make art? Do they at least have some artistic sense?”

Dr. Strum shook her head. “No. None whatsoever.” I scratched my head, grunted, and ambled away, with a

sense of relief. I still have one up on the monkeys! How the Elephant Became Wild Samburu, Kenya – I traveled to a Samburu village in search of a wise elder who could share a good legend for this week. When I saw Mzee Lempuna’s bright orange Nike cap with the gold lettering, I somehow knew I had found the person I was looking for.

Along with his hat, Mzee Lempuna wore the bright red traditional dress of his people. I interrupted his bau game and asked him to tell me a story. Bau is a little like checkers and different versions are played throughout Africa. He agreed to talk with me.

We firmly shook hands, and exchanged greetings neither of us understood. In the nearby school, we squeezed ourselves into little desks designed for 8-year-olds. I opened my little notebook, where I’d jotted down some questions. I was about to begin the interview, but

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first I had to ask, “So, Lempuna, what’s up with the Nike hat?”

He laughed, flashing his crooked white teeth. “It was a gift from a friend. Do you like it?”

I said I thought it suited him quite well (which was no lie) and then got down to the business of legends.

The Samburu people respect elephants more than they respect any other living creature. Elephants are powerful symbols in their culture. In the old days, before the illegal ivory trade began to threaten elephants, the Samburu used ivory to protect them from harm. They made small ivory charms from the tusks of an elephant that had died naturally in the wild. These charms were hung around the necks of newborn babies to protect them throughout their life.

When a young Samburu couple marries, a pile of elephant dung is burned on the floor of their house to bless them with a long marriage and a happy life together.

I asked Lempuna if he would share his favorite story about elephants. He ceremoniously removed his Nike hat, placed it carefully next to his stick, and began talking. Here is the story he told:

In this land a long time ago, the people and wild

animals were friends and worked together. The elephant was the biggest and strongest of creatures. It was also one of the most helpful of all the animals. When the women of the village needed firewood hauled to their houses, they would ask the elephants to help.

One day, a woman needed firewood, so she asked one of the elephants to bring wood from the forest. The elephant happily agreed to help, and headed off into the woods. After several hours, the elephant returned. He brought just a small trunkful of the nicest branches he could find. The woman wasn’t satisfied and complained to the elephant.

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“You’re the biggest and strongest of all the animals and this is the best you can do? This is barely enough to keep a mouse warm for the evening!”

The elephant couldn’t understand why the woman was so upset, but he promised to do a better job next time.

The following day, the woman asked the elephant to gather firewood again. This time the elephant was determined to make up for his earlier mistake. He came back that evening dragging several large trees, roots and all.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” complained the woman. “They’re far too large to be of any use! Why can’t you just do what I asked?”

Hearing the woman complain again, the elephant got mad. He decided to leave the village for good and to go off into the wild. In the wild, he wouldn’t have to suffer the constant complaints of the woman. As he left, he turned to the woman and warned, “When we meet again, we will be enemies.”

As he left, he angrily stripped the woman’s house of its cowhide shingles. He made the shingles into the floppy ears you still see on elephants today.

From that day on, elephants were wild. The people

came to fear, respect and admire them. But people and elephants will never again live together as they did many years ago. Hand Axe Heaven Magadi, Kenya – “This is the site of the great baboon slaughter!” exclaims Dr. Mzalendo Kibunjia. We walk up to an area covered with tools and bones. The artifacts are about 900,000 years old.

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Dr. Kibunjia is a Kenyan archaeologist who studies the earliest tools made by humans. He believes that these tools hold the key to understanding the minds of our early ancestors. Today he guided us to Olorgesailie, one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Archaeologists like Dr. Kibunjia have been digging up bones and tools here for the last 50 years.

Biking from the Nairobi area to Olorgesailie was like an amusement park ride. We plunged off of the edge of the Rift escarpment and entered this hot and dry lowland basin, where Homo erectus lived and hunted almost a million years ago.

Olorgesailie is a tough name to get your tongue around. It’s a Maasai word that means “place of the Giselik people.” No one knows exactly who these people were, but many think they were hunter-gatherers. They probably lived here until several centuries ago, when they were pushed aside by farmers and herders.

For almost a million years, this place was home to people who made their living hunting, scavenging meat from other animals’ kills, and gathering nearby plants. The hunter-gatherer way of life is quickly dying off. In fact, there’s only one true hunter-gatherer culture left in East Africa.

It’s hard to imagine that this bone dry place used to be a lake. As we walked through Olorgesailie in the midday heat, Dr. Kibunjia painted a picture of the site as it looked a million years ago.

“Back then this was all lake,” he said, sweeping his hand across the horizon. “The volcanoes you see were active then, belching clouds of ash into the air. The lakeshores would have been bustling with now-extinct animals. These animals were the early relatives of today’s elephants, hippos, and zebra. This was a good place for Homo erectus to find his dinner.”

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Everywhere we walk there are piles of stone hand-axes. These tools were the Swiss Army knives of Homo erectus. The remains of over 50 baboon-like animals have been found here by archaeologists.

When I think about these ancient baboons, I like to imagine the following scene: It’s early morning and a troop of now-extinct giant baboons (as big as your average 8-year-old kid) are minding their own business. They’re having a morning grooming session by the lakeside. Suddenly, they’re ambushed by a group of hominids who sweep down from the hills. The hominids smash the baboons’ heads in, and then cut them up for a baboon buffet.

These hominids, like their descendants for the next 890,000 years, lived as part of nature. They killed animals and gathered plants as they needed supplies and food. Here at Olorgesailie, Homo erectus was just another animal, even if it was the cleverest animal on the block.

About 10,000 years ago this scenario changed forever. People invented something that altered the course of both human history and the history of the environment: agriculture. Humans were the first animals to take control of their food. The people of about 10,000 years ago tamed (domesticated) plants and animals and made them bend to human needs. With agriculture, humans made a break with nature and began to see themselves as a species apart, destined to control the world around them.

There’s no doubt that agriculture made life easier in many ways. Growing crops meant that people had much more food right nearby. They also knew when the food would be available, and could store food for hard times. People started to settle in one place and build a sense of community. They had free time to develop pottery, metal crafts, and art. In fact, a lot of what we call “progress” can be traced to these changes. But agriculture also caused a

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lot of problems, ones that we’re still dealing with today. What is the worst problem? Population explosion!

The population of the world when farming began was about 10 million. Right now, the world population is bursting at 5 billion. Ten million people live in New York City alone. As people settled down to farm, they crowded into villages and towns. Their health often suffered from the change in lifestyle.

Cholera, measles, tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, plague, and even dental problems (like cavities) started to affect people. These diseases arose from changes in diet and lifestyle that started 10,000 years ago. Some of these diseases became problems because of more crowded living conditions. When people live near one another, it’s easier to pass germs around. Warfare increased too as people started fighting over valuable farm and grazing land.

Maybe the greatest change of all is in the way we look at nature. Nature seems separate from human beings. To many people, it is something we visit on vacation. We don’t even think of ourselves as animals any more.

As I sit here in the shadow of Mt. Olorgesailie, tapping away on my laptop, I feel sadly disconnected from the being who formed the hand-axes that litter the ground behind me. Our tools have changed and so have we. At least I think we have. Do you?

Finding Tales Where You Least Expect Them

Arusha, Tanzania – We were in a dingy hotel in Arusha, Tanzania. It was one of those places where the toilets don’t flush, and mosquitoes bite you all night. Right after I

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checked in, I realized that I hadn’t found a legend yet this week.

If you’ve been reading this feature every week, you know I usually find my legends on some village path or outside the hut of an elder. This week, I found the legend in a parking lot – the one right outside this nasty hotel. There, guarding our bikes, I met Ephraim Laibon. Ephraim was a shy, nervous man. He didn’t act like he’d had much contact with wazungus (white foreigners).

“Do you know where I can meet and talk with some Maasai people around here?” I asked as I greeted him. I figured that if I could meet some traditional Maasai in Arusha, they might have a legend for me.

“Sure,” he responded in very good English. “There’s a cultural center outside of town where they do traditional dances and make crafts.”

“Actually, are there Maasai here in town who I can talk to?”

He thought about it carefully. “No.” Disappointed, I asked him, “So, what cultural group are

you from?” “I’m Maasai.” On the surface, there’s nothing about Ephraim that says

“Maasai.” While working his all-night job here at the hotel, he wears an ordinary jacket, shirt, and slacks. He doesn’t have earrings or jewelry or droopy ear lobes. But he has stories to tell.

We pulled up a couple of plastic chairs and sat out in the moonlight. Ephraim was clearly pleased to be asked about Maasai traditions. He became animated the minute he began to talk. He told me all about Maasai traditions, and then launched into this very personal story about his father’s special encounter with a lion.

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Many years ago, my father and his father owned many cattle and lived in the hills on the edge of the forest. His home, like all traditional Maasai homes, was built around the boma. A boma is a thorn corral where the cattle are kept safe at night.

One dark, moonless night when my father, Longida, was just a child, a strong wind blew in over the hills. The empty water gourds outside the hut fell down and began knocking around. The cows began to rustle about, and their bells rang out, “Clang, clang.” Longida awoke with a strange feeling that something wasn’t right, so he stepped cautiously into the cold night air.

When Longida’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he was able to make out the form of a lion. The lion was standing still against the thorn fence. The beast growled, and Longida stepped back slowly. Then the lion sat back on its haunches and held up its paw. This gesture made Longida feel oddly at ease. He ever-so-slowly approached the lion, closer and closer, until he could see a long acacia thorn sticking out from the lion’s paw.

His heart beat fast in his chest. Longida walked towards the lion until he was close enough to feel the lion purr and smell his musty breath. With his hand shaking, Longida reached out, pulled the thorn from the lion’s paw and quickly stepped back.

With that, the lion turned to walk away. It looked over its shoulder, beckoning Longida to follow. The lion walked into the bush, looking back every several feet to make sure Longida was following. He led the boy to a clearing where a gazelle had been freshly killed. The lion stopped as if to offer him the meat to Longida as a gift, and then stalked off into the night.

Longida woke his family, and told them his fabulous story, but nobody believed him. They did enjoy the meat, though!

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I thanked Ephraim for one of the best myths I’d collected so far.

“No, you don’t understand,” he replied impatiently. “What I’ve told you is no myth. It happened exactly how I told it.”

Civilization Can Be Uncivilized

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania – It’s 8:00 PM, and I’ve just arrived at Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is one of the natural wonders of the world. It’s a 20 square kilometer area of lush vegetation. It contains the highest concentration of large wildlife in the world. And I’m miserable. Everywhere you go armed guards with rifles watch as you pass through security gates. None of this makes me feel very close to nature.

We just spent $390 to enter the park. We’re camping on an open field littered with elephant dung. I’m told we have a great view of the crater from our campsite, but right now I can’t see much of anything. It’s pitch black and freezing cold.

Getting here was more fun and far more interesting than being here. We left the Maasai Girl’s School yesterday morning, and set out on a two-day intensive bike journey. Our journey took us through the Tanzanian homeland of the Maasai people. We biked over rolling hills, into the land of the baobab tree. We then climbed over 3,000 feet up the Rift escarpment onto a much cooler, forested plateau.

Just as we started the climb, we met newly initiated Maasai morani, or warriors. Dressed entirely in black with elaborate white masks painted on their faces, they looked a bit like Halloween trick-or-treaters. When Maasai boys enter adulthood, they go through a special ceremony.

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After the ceremony, the boys become warriors. For several weeks, they must live away from their families. They spend this time together out in the bush, until they are brought back into society.

After five weeks of opening my Compaq computer almost every day to write something, I really enjoyed the freedom of biking through the wilderness. At night, we camped under a full moon. Wild animals roamed nearby, and I left my computer in its case while I watched them. I spent evenings lying on my back, looking at the night sky. One night I saw a shooting star fall from the center of the sky. It streaked all the way to the horizon.

Watching the star fall, it struck me that one of my ancestors could have seen the exact same spectacle a million years ago. But it was different back then. A million years ago was long before agriculture, cities, and money had been invented. It was long before everything got so organized.

In fact, the environment of Ngorongoro Crater, where I am right now, is probably like the environment our African ancestors lived in over two million years ago. Then again, the paleontologist who suggested this, Dr. Robert Blumenschine, probably wasn’t thinking about what’s going on here today. I doubt he thought of the security guards, gift shops, safari vehicles, foreign money, and exclusive lodges that are taking over Ngorongoro when he made his comparison.

The cars, gift shops, and money are all products of modern society. Things like these have only been around for about 5,000 years. That was when civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, started up in different parts of the world. That’s when some people began to amass more wealth and power than others. That’s when the “haves” started separating themselves from the “have-nots.”

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The young Maasai morani we met on the road are a good example of the “have-nots.” I asked them what Ngorongoro was like. Their reply shocked me. They said, “We’ve never been there. They don’t let us in without permits.”

For centuries, the Maasai have lived in this area. They have grazed their cattle here, and performed rituals on nearby mountains and at sacred fig trees. Then, in 1959, the government took their land away. They decided to set up a National Park. Army troops went into the crater and burned houses or tore the houses down. They dumped the people’s belongings on the rim of the crater. They claimed that Maasai cattle were destroying the habitats of wild animals. Today it’s a lot easier for a tourist to enter Ngorongoro than it is for a Maasai to enter the park.

It’s hard for me to believe that 150,000 tourists a year in 20,000 vehicles do less damage to the environment than a few hundred Maasai and their animals! Alas, civilization is a mixed bag.

Civilization, which was born over 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, brought lots of benefits: monumental architecture, writing and numerical systems, and laws. In fact, when we think of the greatest advances of world history we think of civilizations like Greece, China, Egypt, and the Maya. All of these civilizations developed around cities. None of them would have worked without a ruling class to make laws.

Civilization, though, has often been built on the backs of people who did not rule. Great buildings, such as Mayan temples and Egyptian pyramids, were built by people who didn’t have a voice in the rules and laws of their nation. These people were either slaves or they were used as cheap labor. The hard work of many people served the interests of a powerful few. With civilization came inequality and class differences. The story of the

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Maasai here at Ngorongoro is a perfect example of class difference.

A full moon has come up while I’ve been writing. It’s casting a magical blue light over Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara below. Unfortunately, it’s drowned out by the brighter and more demanding bluish light of my computer screen – yet another product of civilization.

Simboya and the Famine

Mangola, Tanzania – Mangola is a small, dusty town of flat-roofed shacks and dirt streets. At first glance, it doesn’t look too friendly, so I asked Mike and Beth to help me on my weekly quest for a myth.

We asked a Barabaig woman, one of the farming peoples who live here. She frowned. “People used to gather under the trees in the evening and tell stories. Not any more.”

It was a hot afternoon. A scorching wind hurled fistfuls of sand into our eyes. I was imagining strolling through autumn leaves with Amelia, my little girl, strapped to my back. We wandered around for a while longer. Close to giving up, we spotted a group of older men sitting in the shade on an old truck tire. “Karibu,” one of them called out in Swahili as we passed.

“Welcome!” It seemed like a good start, so I walked over to the men.

Among the group was Tarmo Baka, a tough and wiry man of 55, dressed in ragged third-hand clothes. His people are known as the Iraqw. They are a local group who herd and farm for a living. According to Tarmo, they originally lived as far north as Ethiopia. Centuries ago, they traveled through the Rift Valley to their present home in Tanzania.

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We all crowded into a small sliver of shade next to a hut. “I will now tell you the story of Simboya,” Tarmo began confidently. Here is the story he told:

A long time ago there was a young boy named Simboya

who had an older brother named Ngaida. It was a time of famine, and their father sent them into the wilderness to find food. Deep in the bush they came upon an elephant that had fallen into a trap.

The elephant looked up from the trap and pleaded with the boys, “Save me! Save me!”

Simboya freed the elephant, which made his brother very angry. “How can you be so foolish to let our dinner go so easily? Would you let your family go hungry?!” Simboya felt bad and offered to go without food so Ngaida could eat more, so long as he would promise that not to tell their father about the elephant.

After several days passed, Simboya’s father asked him, “Simboya, why are you getting so thin?” Ngaida couldn’t hold back. He blurted out the whole story about Simboya and the elephant. The boy’s father was very angry with Simboya. The next day, while they were out collecting honey from the trees, he and Ngaida pulled away the ladder. They left Simboya stranded in the tree.

After days in the tree without food, Simboya’s bones began to show. One day, weak with starvation, he saw an elephant pass beneath him. “Hey, do you know an elephant who is a little smaller than you? It has long ears.” he called out. “It once got caught in a trap near here.”

“Oh yes, I know him,” recalled the elephant. “He should pass this way soon.”

Some hours later, Simboya’s elephant friend passed below. “What happened, Simboya?” called the elephant, with distress.

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“I’m being tortured for freeing you from the trap. Can you help me?”

The elephant paced around the tree all day and night, thinking and thinking. In the morning he proposed a plan. “Can you spit on my back?” he asked. Simboya spat in the middle of the elephant’s back, forming a small pool. “Good,” said the elephant. “Now spit again, and then jump.”

Simboya gathered a huge gob and spat. Then he leapt from the tree and landed with a splash in the pool of spit on the elephant’s back. The elephant took Simboya back to his home. The elephant lived in Seya Habarkari, which means ‘the place of the trees.’ There the elephant gave the boy cattle, and found him a wife.

Some years later, Simboya began to miss his family. He sent a little bird off with a message for them to come to him. They arrived, crying with happiness to see Simboya alive and well. He forgave them, and they lived the rest of their days together in Seya Habakari.”

When Tarmo finished with his story, he stood up to

stretch his legs. I told him how happy I was to have found such a wonderful story after my long search, and asked him what he thought its message was. He looked to his neighbor sitting next to him, who responded with a shrug.

“It always pays to help someone in trouble, doesn’t it?” So…What Makes Us Human? Lake Eyasi, Tanzania – A few hours ago, I was bounding through thorn bushes, trying to keep up with two young Hadza hunters. Stocky and agile, they wore a combination of animal skins and blue jeans. They sprinted over the savanna, chasing down a Vervet monkey.

Moments later, they trapped the monkey high in an acacia tree. They then shot it with three poisonous arrows.

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It dropped to the ground at my feet with a sickening thud. I must admit I felt bad for that monkey which, after all, is my distant cousin.

Back at their camp, the hunters threw the poor primate into the fire. When it was cooked, the two hunters and their family ate the monkey like kids chowing down a Happy Meal. Watching this scene, it could have been easy to think that these people were somehow “less evolved” than I am. I couldn’t help but feel superior, with my clothes, technology, and refined tastes.

I snapped out of it when I turned to see a little girl adorned with colorful beads. She toddled up to her daddy and into his outstretched hands. He smiled the widest smile and hugged his little girl to his chest. He kissed her and made her giggle by blowing on her belly. I’ve played the same game many times with my daughter Amelia. In that private moment, I saw something about what makes us all human. And I realized how similar we all are.

You could say that our first step in this AfricaQuest journey began over five million years ago when our ancestors stood up and walked on two feet. Bipedalism freed our hands to make and use tools two million years ago. Good tools led to greater success with hunting and gathering food. As we ate better, our brains grew. We became intelligent masters of the world around us. Later, modern humans began to speak, as early as 100,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, we created art and religion to make sense of the world around us.

Humans took the next big step when they invented agriculture and herding, around 10,000 years ago. That’s when we began to control nature. Rivers became sources of power, forests became firewood, and land became something to fight over. Populations expanded to cover even the most remote parts of the globe. Cities grew, trade

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flourished, and money was invented. Rulers began to rule. The modern world that we live in began to take shape.

Today human beings are facing some major changes. The world now supports over five billion people. Many of us live very well. We live in houses, drive cars, and wear nice clothes. Technology makes our lives even easier. Remember, I’m sitting in the backwoods of Africa writing this. Where are you reading it? Look around at your surroundings. Life is pretty good, isn’t it?

But have we come too far? We humans have learned to dominate our environment

to the point where nature seems at our disposal. With five billion people on earth, forests are disappearing. Wildlife is dying off, and pollution is a growing problem. The developed world, including the U.S., uses 27 times as many natural resources as people in the Third World. How long can the earth support this way of life?

Despite these disturbing facts, I’m optimistic about our future. My time in Africa has made me even more so. Everywhere we’ve traveled, Africans have treated us with kindness and generosity. I can’t count how many times we’ve landed in someone’s yard at night. We’ve been tired and dirty, needing shelter and food, and have been welcomed into their homes.

Six weeks ago I posed a mystery: what makes us human? Well, you’ve helped me explore a few possibilities. First, we can learn from the past and plan for the future. I’ve shown you how we can look deep into our past. Can’t we also plan thoughtfully for our future? Second, we stand out from other animals because we can cooperate and work together. But perhaps it’s our capacity for love and compassion that are our most important traits.

Over the history of humankind, love and compassion have allowed us to develop bonds. These bonds have brought together families, tribes, and nations.

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The future definitely hangs in the balance. What will allow us to survive? I think I saw an answer in the eyes of that Hadza father.

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John Fox is an anthropologist and writer who has excavated ancient ball courts in Central America, traced Marco Polo’s route across China, and biked Africa’s Rift Valley in search of human origins. He has written about his research and adventures for Smithsonian Magazine, Outside Magazine, Salon and other publications. John has appeared on Good Morning America from the top of a Maya pyramid, as well as on NBC Nightly News, BBC’s The World, and other programs. He contributes regular cultural commentaries on Vermont Public Radio and is affiliated faculty at the SIT Graduate Institute.

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ookinfo/9781605710112/0/.

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