The Wild Man

30,000 years ago, humans faced numerous challenges and obstacles to survive. They weren’t strong like a lion or tiger. They could not swim like a dolphin or whale and even they could not fly like a bird. They had to run for their lives. They had to face numerous hardships such as natural calamities, deadly animals, reptiles, and birds despite they had to search for food to make their living. So, they were very afraid of nature around them. In order to find a safe place, they had some consciousness that there must be the supreme power in the universe, which could save them and offer them a safe place. They called him to protect them. Surprisingly the god gave them the boon of sixth sense, which made them fight for their survival. In those days, most of the men lived in the thick jungle in groups like any other animals and birds. They had to climb and live on tall trees for their survival. They also used their hands and legs like chimpanzees to climb and jump from one tree to another. They ate fruits from branches of the trees, killed and ate small animals on lands, reptiles in burrows, and birds on trees. More often from trees, humans could enjoy the views of fighting between animals to get the mate of their choice. They could also witness the hunting of herbivores by carnivores. Even at night, they listened to the loud noise of animals, like the howling of wolves, the chirping of birds, and the nocturnal chorus of insects.

In one instance, a man broke a branch of a tree to make long wooden sticks to pick fruits from the branches of other trees that were away from his reach. He even used those sticks to kill animals for food. Later it was followed by others as well. Men found trees were their safe haven. But they got killed when they accidentally fell from those trees or were caught by deadly and dangerous animals when they were on the land. Somehow men managed to collect food from trees, and from lands. But the amount of food wasn’t enough to feed themselves. Sometimes they did not get food for several days. Every so often the food got rotten or stolen by the birds in the trees. Unexpectedly such trees got stuck by the thunders, getting washed away by the heavy floods. So, survival became very tough for those even after climbing tall trees. They lived like this for several millennia.

But the curiosity of men to learn new things was always there. It even went up over a period of time. They observed and learned everything from nature. The climate changed over a period of time. During autumn, they experienced continuous rain for 3 months. It was a hard time for the men who lived on trees. They were afraid of carnivores as well as forest floods. The chance of being washed away in forest floods was very much obvious. So, they dared not to step down from trees. But those who stepped down lost their lives. Then came a long winter, due to fog and cloudy monsoons, they could not even see the sun for more than 3 months. Animals, birds, and insects had their own way of living to protect themselves from nature. The birds built their own nests, snakes in termite pits, rats in burrows, and animals like lions lived in dens. So, in order to protect themselves from harsh environments, humans had a strong vision of building houses on trees, as if they did not want to come down and walk on the land due to the fear of getting killed by the deadly animals.

In man’s life, everything happened accidentally. The dream of building a house also materialized like that. On one arid day, the forest was struck with heavy rain, due to which, the branches of a tree from the top were broken and fell on the place where a man resided. Fortunately, the man escaped narrowly from the fallen branches. It just fell above his head and offered him a complete cover. Out of fear, he did not move for a while. The fallen branches barred the rainwater from reaching his body, later the rain stopped and the clouds passed by. Immediately, after the rain hot sun came and make it hot. But the sunlight could not reach him too. The fallen branches extended up to the next tree. On seeing this he was astonished and walked on the fallen branches to move across the trees. He enjoyed doing this and made a huge noise to express his happiness. Many days passed by. He acclaimed a place where he was fully covered up. So, people around him also wanted like that and started cutting the branches to make a safe cover above and around them. The man’s life changed slowly and surely for a while. But those changes did not live last long.

During spring, the forest experienced a heavy wind of around 50-80 km/hr. So, life in the tree was very terrible. It cut down a lot of trees and the trees where people lived swayed rapidly. It also knocked down the wooden logs positioned around them. They could not hold them in place. They had to hold the trees tightly to protect themselves. After seeing this, literally, they cried. Immediately after this incident, a man looked at a bird’s nest, which was not jostled away by this heavy wind. He had a question about its rigidity. He observed it. He took it and see how the nest was tightly packed. He saw another bird carrying some straws from a distant place. He noticed it carefully and found that the binding element behind it was the fiber. Subsequently, he got the notion of building a house rigidly using fiber. So, he jumped across the trees to collect small pieces of wooden stripes, thin lengthy branches from trees, dry grasses, straws, and also wooden logs, to build houses on trees. Later with the help of others, he arranged the wooden logs on the branches between two trees. The wooden logs were tightly bound using thin lengthy branches, fibers made of wooden stripes, straws, and dry grasses. That man verified the boundness of logs and accoladed the effort of people around him. Immediately after a few weeks, the forest experienced similar winds but the house survived. Later others also followed the same. It showed apparent progress in the life of man in the jungle. They had a lot of advantages of building huts on trees. Those who built their huts could protect themselves from severe environments, moreover, they could also hide from animals that could climb the trees for their prey. In their huts, they found a lot of spaces to keep and protect their food from rain and the hot sun. Now they got a place called home to keep their food. So, they came down from those trees, walked, searched for food, and stored them in their tree huts.

After several hundred years, people found stones could be used as weapons to keep animals away. Later, they sharpened the stones to kill animals and cut them into pieces. Those were the times; men learned the art of making stone weapons. Later they tied the sharp stones to a wooden stick and used them in the form of a spear. The application of a spear brought about the evolution of hunting. The man began to use the stone spears to hunt animals that hunt them down. Slowly, the hunter got hunted by the man of that time. In those times, men always relied upon stone weapons and carried the stone weapons to places wherever they went.

Those who lived in trees, started the tradition of shouting whenever they were in deep trouble. On shouting, most often, the animals ran away from their places. They also beat the trees very heavily, shake the branches, and threw stones at the bushes, water logs, and rocks to raise noise against the wild animals. In this way, the man started protecting their territories. They even expanded it to a large extent. Where ever they lived they formed a community and selected their leaders. The formation of a community was very much apparent in nature. These ideologies were derived by observing birds and animals. On one sunny day, due to climate change thunder struck a tree, and it got fired. The fire spread all over the forest rapidly. The fire burnt down several trees and killed many animals and birds. A distance away from that place a man who lived in a tree hut could see the forest fire very clearly, so he shouted aggressively and yelled at people around him to keep them alert. Everyone around him in the trees also shouted at the forest fire. After alerting his people, he came down from his hut to hunt the animals for food.

He heard some loud noise of a wild animal. So, he was completely alert to pick up his spear which was kept on the rock cliffs nearby his tree. But taking the spear, a lion came from the bushes to kill him. So, he ran away from the vicinity to safeguard himself. He had no other option, but to run into the bushes where the forest fire was heavy. Fortunately, he found a shelter nearby hill amidst of forest fire. But the lion that chased him, missed him while jumping on him. Unexpectedly, it fell into a pool of forest fire and got killed. The man saw the power of fire. He also found several animals, birds and plants died in the forest fire. People who lived on trees all came down to live in their lands. Now they also knew how to use fire to protect themselves. The art of learning had just uplifted the man from what he was and where he was. Once afraid of deadly animals, the art of tool-making changed the way man lived. They learned the art of hunting by using sharp piercing weapons. They killed the animals like rabbits, goats, buffalos, deer, etc for food. But later they used fire to cook their meat and food. The application of weapons and fire changed man’s life forever.