I am a Primitive Man
Chapter 102 – The Old and weak won against the Young and strong; The Next Shaman
Chirp chirp.
Chirp chirp.
Chirp chirp.
Shaman sat on a rock, bringing his legs together and lightly placing both feet on a well-polished bone to keep it from moving.
His hands gripped the ends of a hand-pressed drill on a wooden board, pressing down, lifting, pressing down again, and lifting. With his movements, the stone drill fixed on the drilling rod would rotate rapidly.
Then came the sound of “chirp chirp.”
Underneath the stone drill, where the bone needed drilling, bone shavings were already accumulating, surrounding the stone drill.
While Shaman used the hand-pressed drill to bore holes, the strongest Elder Senior Brother crouched nearby. In one hand, he held a bone slab similar in thickness to the one under Shaman’s feet; in the other, he held a stone drill, drilling away with all his might.
At first, relying on youthful strength, the Elder Senior Brother drilled faster than Shaman.
However, this high speed couldn’t be sustained for too long. In less than two minutes, he had to slow down due to fatigue.
On the other hand, Shaman, the elderly man, maintained a calm and steady pace, pressing down on the wooden board with each deliberate motion.
“Kacha.”
A subtle sound of something breaking came from the bone slab under Shaman’s foot, and at the same time, the rotating hand-pressed drill got stuck.
This was the signal that the bone slab had been drilled through.
Carefully, Shaman retracted the hand-pressed drill and picked up the bone slab to examine it. A hole, rough on the outside and fine on the inside, appeared on the bone slab.
Shaman only needed to use a stone drill bit to smoothen the edges, and the hole in the bone would be finished.
After Shaman, with a slightly red face, put away the hand-pressed drill, the sweaty Elder Senior Brother also stopped his actions. He put down the stone drill and the bone, flexing his wrists and fingers, which had become sore and achy from drilling.
Shaman took the bone slab the Elder Senior Brother had put down, and the hole on it was only about one-third of the thickness of the bone.
This drilling competition ended with Shaman, the elderly and frail, prevailing over the young and strong Elder Senior Brother.
Moreover, Shaman, who had drilled one hole, could continue at the previous speed, while the Elder Senior Brother, without a break, would drill more slowly.
Without comparison, there is no harm, and it cannot reflect the difference between the primitive drilling method and the new hand-pressed drill created by Han Cheng.
At the current speed, one person using the hand-pressed drill could easily drill six or seven bone holes daily.
This means the drilling speed must be increased by at least three times. Indeed, it is necessary to develop new tools.
Having personally experienced the benefits of the hand-pressed drill, Shaman held one in his hand and another bone piece with a drilled hole, offering a respectful salute to Han Cheng and praising, “Divine Child.”
Others who witnessed the wonders of the hand-pressed drill followed Shaman’s lead, saluting the divine child and shouting with respect and excitement, “Divine Child.”
Bowing and saluting the divine child had become a norm in the Green Sparrow tribe whenever something miraculous happened.
Shaman conducted another ritual, and the items used for the ceremony were the hand-pressed drill recently created by Han Cheng and the bone piece with a hole drilled using the same tool.
Before the arrival of the divine child, the Green Sparrow tribe rarely held rituals. Conducting three or four rituals from one spring to another was considered good enough. However, since the divine child arrived, the Shaman’s frequency of conducting rituals began to increase rapidly.
Recording things was both a painful and joyful process for Shaman. Sometimes, he felt that frequent rituals might displease the heavenly gods. However, the magical creations of the divine child were too remarkable not to share with the gods. Thus, Shaman felt uneasy if he kept things from the gods.
By now, every time Han Cheng created something new, Shaman had to go through this conflicted mental process.
After the ritual, the manufacturing of the hand-pressed drill began on a large scale.
The production of the hand-pressed drill was not complicated. Han Cheng had previously made it in the presence of Lame and Hei Wa, and they had memorized the process. With their assistance, the Green Sparrow tribe had five additional hand-pressed drills in less than two days.
Children in the tribe were more interested in the newly created hand-pressed drills than the adults. They always sought the opportunity to experience firsthand the magical things created by the divine child, much like how Han Cheng had eagerly observed the bamboo craftsman in the past.
The introduction of the hand-pressed drill significantly increased bone shovel production speed. In just six or seven days, the Green Sparrow tribe had an additional fifteen or sixteen bone shovels.
Currently, the tribe’s inventory of bone shovels has reached thirty-four.
Even though there would be a considerable amount of earthwork after spring, thirty-four bone shovels could not be used simultaneously. Han Cheng made so many to be prepared for various scenarios.
After all, the method of making bone shovels was primitive, and despite Han Cheng’s careful consideration, they could not be as durable as modern iron shovels. Breakage during earthwork was inevitable.
With spare bone shovels, shovel damage would not affect the progress. The damaged shovels could be repaired during non-working hours.
Of course, the uses of the hand-pressed drill were not limited to making bone shovels. In the future, it will find applications in many other creations.
After a period of use, Han Cheng addressed issues that arose during the application and improved the hand-pressed drill.
The improvement involved the rope.
Though the rope woven from grass was strong, it was not abrasion-resistant. In continuous use, the grass rope tended to break. Han Cheng’s improvement was to replace the grass-woven rope with one twisted from leather strips.
After the ritual, the people in the tribe were busy making hand-pressed drills, and Shaman wasted no time recording all these developments on the clay tablet in his cave.
Besides Han Cheng and the Elder Senior Brother, one more person could enter the inner cave: the underage Shi Tou.
Due to the multitude of miraculous creations by the divine child, even with a more usable clay tablet, the Shaman could not keep up with the pace. After some contemplation, he chose Stone, who had the best command of the divine script and language in the tribe, as his successor.
This decision would help reduce Shaman’s workload and, secondly, considering Shaman’s age, it was time to start grooming a successor.
In the beginning, Shaman considered Han Cheng his successor, envisioning him as the great and honorable shaman of the Green Sparrow tribe. However, these thoughts disappeared last winter when Han Cheng broke the ice and caught fish.