changed and odd

 

Alex Saber

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In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived on earth, a person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being. Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference. All spoke the same language.

That was the time when words were like magic. The human mind had mysterious powers. A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences.

It would suddenly come alive and what people wanted to happen could happen—all you had to do was say it.

Nobody can explain this:
That's the way it was.


—Nalungiaq
Nalungiaq was an Inuit woman interviewed by ethnologist Knud Rasmussen in the early twentieth century.

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Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen for a long time.

My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,
and an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?


—Hermann Hesse

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