• "The Island People" A Short Story
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In my history class I was recently tasked with writing a short story with the only concept being an indigenous population seeing colonists from another place reaching them by boat. the purpose was to study how said colonists would effect the native people. I'm fairly happy with how this turned out after about 30 minutes of writing. I hope you enjoy the story! [quote]"The Island People" Kurt Fitzgerald 9/7/11 For thousands of years, we didn't change much. I remember how the shaman would say that our ancestors came from a far away place in the dream time. He told us they had to leave for reasons that were lost to time. We had always had happiness in out village. We always had small fights, but we always ended them without hurting. This was as it was told how we should be by our ancestors from when they were smart in the dream time. This sun and moon seemed like the many that I had lived in before, but there was a strange occurrence on that 18th day. That morning, several of the hunters, that found us meat along the coast, saw strange shapes across the line where the sky meets the big water. When the hunters came back that evening, we were all curious, so we followed the hunters to the beach and to the spot where they saw the shapes. Strangely, they looked much bigger to the hunters than they had been earlier that day. I though they looked like black trees with wide white leaves. The chieftains left a few people behind to watch to see if the shapes would do anything. The next morning they were large enough for us to see them better. The looked like the small islands off the coast of our lands, only they seemed to have one or two big trunks on each island and no green plants. Though they had many hanging vines in weird patterns along the trunks. After a few hours they got really close to the snaking water, and we could see people on them! When the people got as close to the land as it looked like their islands could allow, they threw long ropes made of metal into the water with huge gray claws on the ends. I was in one of the groups left that night to watch these people and watch what they would do. We hid in the jungle and stayed out of view. Luckily they didn't seem to track any sort of trail we might have left for them to see. We saw them coming off of the island with fat canoes. When new returned to the living place, the Shamans were completely confused. I became worried when Big Shaman said: “The ancestors in the dream time never said this would happen in the temple writings! This changes everything! We must think for many suns and moons before we can adapt this to the beliefs!” Big Chieftain was different. “We can find out how they made these magical islands! We can see how they made chains of metal, and how they built the fat canoes!” I saw in his eyes that this happening would make everything he thought before wrong. To the Chieftains, unfortunately, they would have to call a meeting with the families to choose what action to take. It was complete chaos! “We have to stay away from the Island people!” “The best thing is to talk to them!” “Hurt them before they can hurt us!” “Maybe they can show us their magic of moving islands?” With so many ideas flying through the meeting place, the Shamans and Chieftains said they would go to make their own ideas. Some of our people were not happy. Some wanted violence, and some wanted to simply avoid the island people. After a few long moments, the Shamans and the Chieftains could not agree themselves even. Many of the men and women of the meeting place ended up in a loud babble of arguing. The debate ended up on two sides, us who wanted to speak to the Island People, and who wanted to either leave them alone or fight them if they were actually bad. I was curious, I wanted to meet these new Island People. The next few moons and suns were new for the tribe. We were not allowed to leave the living place because of the disagreement, as we have always done with disagreements. People screamed and fought over the disagreement, they hurt a man by pushing and kicking and hitting by an angry group of people against his choice. Many of the Shamans wanted to stay away. The Chieftains chose that it would be best to talk and find out what the Island People would really want. It became so divided that the Fathers and Mothers of the families opposed to meeting moved their living places much further away from the living place that we have always been. After about five suns and moons, there was a final meeting called between our two groups who had been deemed the “Shamans” and “Chieftains” by their respected leaders and ideas. I wanted to go with Big Shaman because he was my friend, but I felt that Big Chieftain was the one who was right about what to do. “As the leader of the Shamans, I say we leave and stay away from the Island People!” “As the leader of the Chieftains, we must find what the Island People want!” “The Island People were not detailed in the before time! They can not be good if our ancestors didn't want them to be us!” “Maybe the ancestors were wrong!” After Big Chief said those final words, all was lost. The meeting place flew apart in a frenzy of blood, wood, men and women running about in a frenzy of fleeing and fighting. I had to leave. I was stabbed in the side as I tried to help an elder who was knocked down. The pain was excruciating, yet my need to know what would settle all of this fighting and pain would carry my body through the night all the way to the beach and the Island people who had started all of this. When I finally reached the water, I saw that the moving Islands were at the end of the snaking water. They were leaving! I ran further. I screamed as hard as I could. When I reached the end of the land, I could go no further. My wound had never been covered. I sat down on the sand with the water at my feet, feeling cold as my eyes shut slowly. I wish the Island People had never come in the first place. [/quote] I still have time to edit it, so any constructive criticism on the writing and story is welcome.
Erm If A: They speak english as a first language and B: they've been an isolated community for "thousands of years" why would they be such terribly poor speakers The idea of tribespeople speaking crudely isn't because they're retarded (as you have portrayed) but because they've only picked up bits and pieces from outsiders So the whole thing is kind of upside down and inside out like that Also it's very casually written, and the formatting is awful. Everything from the language to the description is very basic (which you probably wanted with your native narrator, but you should note that it's not at all enjoyable to read that way.)
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