DIGGING THE WEANS

A Story by ROB E RT NAT HAN

Drawings by N. M. Bodecker

THE inscription on the north wall of thetemple at Pound-Laundry on the -east

coast of the Great West Continent has finallybeen deciphered by the team led by Sf. B'HanBollek. This work brings us certain assuranceof the theory expressed by Bes Nef, Hanh Shui,and Nat Obelgerst-Levy that a people of con-siderable numbers and power formerly inhabitedthis salt and desolate land. It is a triumph forthose archaeologists who have been working eversince the fortunate discovery of an ivory crossand string of beads at the northeast, or "Bosstin"tumulus, along with a rusted iron wheel whichseems to have been designed to run along somekind of track or trolley. These artifacts, as every- .one knows, are now in the museum at Kenya.

What we have been unable to discover, is thefate of these ancient people. That they perishedin some sort of upheaval many thousands ofyears ago is clear from the inscription itself,which Sr. B'Han Bollek translates as follows:"nor [for north?] rain nor hail nor snow ... "there are some hieroglyphics missing, and theinscription ends with the phrase ... "their ap-pointed rounds."

However, it must be remembered that the rand the ware readily interchangeable, hath inHittite and in ancient Hivite, and Bes Nef pre-fers the reading: "their pointed wounds." Thisnaturally suggests a catastrophe, possibly an in-vasion from the east, a belief, I may add, greatlyencouraged by the finding-s in the Valley of the

Sun, which will be discussed later. On the otherhand, if, as some believe, including B'HanBollek, that the phrase should be read: "theirappointed rounds," the meaning of the full in-scription might well be as follows: "The northrain, the hail and the snow [also from the north]have accomplished their appointed 'rounds' [ortasks]" ... namely, have annihilated the in-habitants.

So much, then, we do know; but very little elseis known of these ancient people. ProfessorShui believes that they may have been Brythons,and related to the still older, Druidic culturewhose stones are still to be seen in the EastIsland. Professor Shui bases this theory upon acertain similarity in the two glyphs, the Brythonic"bathe" and the Wean "bath"; but his theorynecessarily comes to grief when one examinesthe glyph for "that which rises"-the Brythonic"lift" and the Wean "elevator" having obviouslyno common root.

I have called these people the Weans, becausecertain archaeological findings incline us to thebelief that they called their land the We, or theUs; actually, in the southern part of the con-tinent, the word Weuns (or Weans) does appear,as wen as the glyph for \Vealls, and the wordTheyuns.

To return for a moment to the theory ofcatastrophe, and the "pointed wounds" of BesNef. In the Valley of the Sun there have beenunearthed many bronze, and tin, and even stonefigures of what would seem to be a kind ofhuge praying mantis. There are marry groupsof such figures, usually including male and fe-male, and sometimes with young; it is curiousthat in every case the male figure is larger andmore powerful than the female, which we know

DIGGING THE WEANS 47

to be untrue in the case of the actual prayingmantis. These figures nevertheless have thesmall, cruel head, the long savage anus, thespindly legs, and the attenuated bodies of themantis. Is it possible that a civilization of menand women, more or less like ourselves, mighthave been overwhelmed by an invasion of man-tis-like insects? Where could they have comefrom? and where did they go? The conjectureis, of course, fascinating; but no mantis skeletonsor remains of any kind have been found, exceptthe above-mentioned statues.

Pound-Laundry is in itself the richest of thediggings. It is believed that at one time thiscity (for recent excavations indicate' "the laun-dry," as we call it, to have been a city of con-siderable culture) may at one time have been,in fact, the capital of We, or at least to have hadsome political or historic importance. Obelgerst-Levy translates the first word' of the name as"washing"; the second is obviously the sign for"weight." It is not known what-if anything-was washed there.

In the middle mound, or Cha'ago, near theLakes, there have been unearthed several paint.ings; badly discolored, they yet show enough toprove that the inhabitants of Cha'ago were notentirely without visual art. However, they showalmost nothing else. They portray squares, lines,lozenges, and mathematical figures; perhaps theywere used in some way by"the astrologers of theperiod. One finds no recognizable human faceor figure. We cannot be sure what the Weansof Cha'ago looked like.

(In this relation, it is interesting to note thatamong the artifacts unearthed at Cha'ago weresome unbroken jars and other ceramic objects;also statues of what. appear to be eggs, and cer-tain nightmare shapes in stone, iron, and bronze.One is allowed to wonder if there was not somecorrespondence between these art objects andthe praying mantises who may have taken overthe country. It is also believed that the Weanshad music, but so far at least only a few brassinstruments and some drums and cymbals havebeen found; no sounds have come down to usfrom those faraway people except 'a high rasp-ing cry from a slender horn-like object found inOleens.)

To RETURN again to the matter ofwhat the Weans may have looked like; no

human bones have been found. Although wehave turned up many artifacts of the period,we have nothing for the anthropologists to work

Praying mantises with young

on. It is probable that the bones of.these peoplewere brittle, and turned to chalk soon afterinterment.

The greatest difficulty in reconstructing thelife of the Weans has not been the decipheringof the inscriptions and the scrolls-due to thebrilliant work of Professors Bollek and Shui-butthe fact that the Weans, unlike' the true ancients,used little gold, preferring to build everythingof steel or other metal, and of some curious sub-stance which BesNef translates as "gastric,"or "plastric." As a result, little is left for thearchaeologist. Stone was used mainly for monu-ments, as was bronze, but those which have beenuncovered are too heavily encrusted with bird-droppings to be easily recognizable. One theoryis that the Weans collected guano; but it is notknown what they did with it.

It is here, for the first time, that I must takeissue with my esteemed colleague, ProfessorKowly of the Institute for Ancient Arts andLetters, who has discovered in one of the scrollsat Pound-Laundry a glyph of what he believesto be a bird-man. Professor Kowly sees in thissome correspondence to the djinn of the even

48 HARPER'S MAGAZINE

more ancient civilizations of Akad and Sumer.While agreeing in the translation of the glyph,I must dispute its meaning: I believe it to havea purely domestic significance, and not religiousat all. For one thing, it is often found alongwith the glyph of a woman, and the sign of ahost, or hosts; there seems to be another letterbetween the final t and the s, possibly an a oran e, which would make it host as or hostes. Icannot help but see this as a picture of an ordi-nary family, the man in winged splendor, asbefits a husband, the woman merely one of anumber, or host (or hostes).

In this relation, it is interesting to note thatthe Hittite plural, in the feminine gender, oftenadds the e. I am not one of those who hold thatthese unknown Weans were actually Hittites,although I admit to some strange correspond-ences. In any case, a Sumerian djinn wouldnever be round accompanied bya woman, unlessshe were a sorceress. There is no suggestion thatthe woman-hastes was in fact a witch or sorceress,

Professor Bollek at work

which I believe effectively disposes of Kowly'suntenable hypothesis.

Apropos of the mounds or tumuli of theWeans, each one of which appears to containand cover the ruins of a city or congregation ofhabitations, an expedition under Hulay-Benekerhas been for several seasons in the field in searchof a mound thought to cover the most extensivecongregation of all. The name of this lost city,or congregation, which is believed to have beenmore influential in Wean affairs than Pound-Laundry itself, was-as deciphered by both

Eretebbe and Bes Nef-Mil Town. So far notrace of it has been found.

All that we have been able to learn of Weanmanners and customs we have been obliged todecipher from the- copper and silver tabletsfound in the mounds, and in the Valley of theSun in the southwestern part of the country. Asa matter of fact, it would appear that a con-siderable civilization flourished in the southwest,not in any way inferior to the middle mound atCha'ago, or to the eastern tumuli such as n.yok.Here, in transcription, is Bes Nef's account ofa religious occasion, translated from scrollsfound in the Valley:

"[for that] he did cause them ... [by] rockand roll - to [give out] cries and screams .loudly and . .. in the corridors- in

2 "syncope ...The word "roll" or "rolls" suggests a feast,

possibly a feast of communion on a grand scale.So far no one has been able to explain thepresence of the word "rock."

However, it is apparent that the people cametogether, and were seized by' an ecstasy of somesort in which they lost reason and decorum. Thisbelief is further strengthened by another scrollfound in the same tumulus, in which the scribereports: "and the spirit came down."

So the evidence points to the fact that theWeans were a religious people. There is addi-tional witness in a silver coin dug up in one ofthe smaller mounds, which carries the inscrip-tion "In God We Trust"-or "Trusted." Thetranslation is by the Bantu scholar, Eretebbe;the tense of the verb "to trust" is obscure.

Neither Eretebbe nor any other member ofthe Academy has as yet been able to discoverwhat god was meant. It is extremely unlikelythat these ancient people had only one; inscrip-tions found among the ruins of Pound-Laundrysuggest, in fact, a number of religious differencesamong them. There are definite traces of Hebrewculture in the ruins of n.yok; and althoughnothing has so far been found at Pound-Laundryto suggest Babylonian or early Egyptian influ·ences, there are hints here and there of theCyprian cult of Antinous, particularly among thearts.

It is probable, too, that the Weans worshiped,among others, a sort of horse-god or centaur.Professor Rass points out that the fragment un-

1"Columns't-s-Bollek. "Aisles"-Obelgerst-Levy.2 "Syncopation"-Obelgerst-Levy. But this makes no

sense, apparently.

DIGGING THE WEANS 49

earthed at s.nita, and known as the Rass frag-ment, contains the unmistakable glyph for"horse," and the simple statement: "Schwaps[schnaps?] was first." Yet another glyph, foundnot far from s.nita, is that of a bearded god; it,too, states that "Schwepps [schwaps?] was first."

In this regard, it is interesting to note that ina fragment unearthed at Oleens, and known asthe Oleens fragment, the word "schnaps" is writ-ten: "cocacola," which was the name of an Aztecroot-deity.

IN POL I TIC 5, we are on surer ground.It is possible to say with absolute certainty,

from scrolls unearthed at Pound-Laundry, andalso from the ancient city of Boxton, or Bosstin,

.known to archaeologists as mound x-5, that theWeans were divided into hegemonies or states,each ruled by a theocrat or autocrat, and allloosely joined in a confederacy under one ruler(who, however, was not a theocrat) whose dutyit was to retire after an interval varying inlength from four to twelve years, and to issuewarnings and oracles. These groups, or states,were in turn divided into counties, which werein turn divided into wards. As for the systemof government itself, it appears to have beenconducted by means of barter, each county orstate getting what it could for itselfin exchangefor helping its neighbor to do the same.

Public servants, we know, were paid little;they were expected to enrich themselves as bestthey could in private. When this enrichment,which was illegal, was discovered, they were be-headed. This curious fact did not keep themajority of Weans from seeking public office;but one is forced to conclude, from inscriptionsfound at N assaw, that the most admired citizenslived in actual poverty, and rarely spoke at all,except in musical sounds or mathematical for-rnulae, As we have already seen, no musicalsounds have come down to 'us, which is un-fortunate.

It is true that two scrolls, bound each inoblong form, were found by the team of Haph-Bukong and Sumer, digging one winter amongthe ruins of what may once have sbeen somesort of library. That it may have been a reposi-tory of many such scrolls-or as we should say"books" -is suggested by the remains of metalshelves which may have held the scrolls (or elsejellies, but informed opinion veers toward thescrolls).

Unfortunately, both seroUs, though easilylegible, due to the. brilliant work of the scholars

Bes Nef and Obelgerst-Levy, are unintelligible;that is to say, the words, although translatable,make no sense when put together. One of thesescrolls appears to be an account of a god or heronamed Finigan, or Finnegan; the size of thescroll and its rare state of preservation attest toits importance as a religious or historical docu-ment, but it is impossible to make out whathappens to him. The second scroll is in whatappears to be a metrical, or verse form; nothingcan be gathered from it at all.

A tablet unearthed at n.yok gives us a wel-come glimpse into business transactions in We."[Having] borrowed a million," it reads in thetranscription of B'Han BoUek, "[I acquired]thereby credit to twice that amount." This sug-gests an economy not unlike OUf own: one thinksof the motto of our Treasury Department: "Tothe Borrower, All." Throughout history therehas never been anything more useful than credit,to establish credit. Without a debt, there isnothing.

"SchwejJps[schwaps?] was first."

As for the history of these interesting and al-most unknown ancestors- of ours, no more isknown than is known of the Romans, and laterthe Brythons: they established themselves in theland by killing off the' native tribes alreadythere, and built their empire by the sword;when the sword rusted, .they perished, alongwith Egypt. Babylon, and Greece, leaving behindthem only these curious mounds, some scrolls,monuments, and glyphs, a few statues of eggsand mantises, and no music.

1 Nat Obelgerst-Levy denies that the Weans wereancestors of ours.