The First Ever Writer

Many years ago a couple sat in their modest home looking out through the open entrance. They surveyed the colourful vista of a beautiful natural landscape unsoiled by man, just as nature intended.
It was a blissful summers day full of the noises of wild life, a melody of harmonious bird song and animal calls.

The female eyed her partner with a longing deep down inside, she wished for a means of expression beyond the normal caressing and touching. She felt inspired by the things she saw out of the entrance to her cave.
He just sat eyeing a large deer that was grazing just below their cave.
He too was longing deep down inside, he wished for an easy way of taking down that animal without having to run after it with a spear.

Language was not really a part of every day communications apart from the odd "ugh" or "eeer" these were the early years of mankind and things were more visual with pointing gestures accompanying the odd "ugh" or two. It was this female who had discovered fire, albeit accidentally and only through frustration at her partners lack of interest in her new fur foot covering. She had two sticks in her hands and fuelled by her anger she was grinding them together thinking of what she would like to do to him, with them, when suddenly they started smouldering and caught the hay on their bed on fire. That was the first fire, started by man...er woman. Thus began an era of creativity and experimentation.

Soon cooking was invented, but quite accidentally. The male, back from hunting and exhausted from running after deer with a spear, was eager to display to his female the catch of the day. He found her less than interested in him and more interested in her reflection in a small pool of water at the back of the cave. In a rage he threw the deer carcass on the fire and ughed and ughed at her loudly, stamping his feet like a three year old child. She returned with an ugh and splashed water in his face. This was the first domestic row. It was the aroma of roasting deer that halted that domestic row. The enticing smell reached the back of the cave snapping the couple out of their rage.
They both ran to the fire and could not resist, each pulling off a piece of meat and tasting it. It was so good the rest of the day was spent trying different vegetables and herbs on the fire. Not only was this the first cooking but the first Sunday roast had been invented.

It was the next day when the male was out hunting that the female sat in the back of the cave thinking. A charred stick in her hand and a deep longing in her heart she screamed as her unresolved rage returned and swiping a stick across the wall at the back of the cave seemed to assist the release of her frustration. She left black lines and circles and odd shapes on the wall. She froze for a moment staring at what she had just done. The rest of the day she added lines here and there. Finding ways to add colour to her creation using deer blood and vegetation she had now discovered a form of writing and drawing.
Thus Woman became the first artist but not only that the first writer had come into existence.

I know lads but you don't honestly think for one second that we males who can only think of one thing at a time are capable of inventing these things??

Makes perfect sense to me, except I believe the man was whipping his wife with the stick and his backstroke made the markings on the wall. Therefore a man was the first writer.

I believe it was signed "ugh," definitely a male signature. If it were the female it would have been signed "eeer" as David so cleverly expressed.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Makes perfect sense to me, except I believe the man was whipping his wife with the stick and his backstroke made the markings on the wall. Therefore a man was the first writer.

You're right, of course, Dick ... but the markings he made out of anger were an incoherent mess and no one could make any sense of them. Then along came a thoughtful female with a bucket and mop to wash away the scribbles. As she worked, some of the markings stubbornly remained. As she focused on these remaining marks, ideas formed in her mind and she saw patterns emerging that symbolised the man's anger. She refined the markings into characters and, thus, became the first human to write coherently.

Moral of the story: Anger management produces clearer writing.

Bravo!

Beyond my expertise.

Who said writing had to be coherent?

What?

According to Riann Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade, women really were the first writers, but she didn't mention any of David's information. Maybe she just didn't know about it.

Ann
VOWW (Very Old Woman Writer)