Ch77 – Pottery
There were many things that the Giant Pig Tribe had that the Big Bear Tribe didn’t have. For example, there was no sign of pottery anywhere in the Big Bear Tribe.
In addition, there were also some plants and other things that the Big Bear Tribe didn’t have.
However… For goods like pottery, the production methods and technology were actually in the hands of the Beast God Temple.
Zhu Zhan spoke, “Do you know why each and every one of the big tribes all support the Beast God Temple? It’s because there are many things that only the people of the Beast God Temple know how to make. For example, pottery.”
The priests for those big tribes were all arranged and selected by the Beast God Temple, and their knowledge wasn’t passed down from generation to generation. Those priests were all loyal to the Beast God Temple.
At the same time, the Beast God Temple controlled techniques that the other tribes didn’t have themselves, such as the knowledge required to make pottery.
Only the people of the Beast God Temple could make pottery, but pottery was more useful and effective than stone tools. That meant that in their Giant Pig Tribe, anyone with a smidgeon of status used pottery.
In addition to this, the people of the Beast God Temple also controlled the spread of various areas of other knowledge.
Zhu Zhan spoke a lot and then suddenly added, “Since your tribe has a messenger of the Beast God, you should be able to make pottery, right?” He was grateful to Zhou Ji for saving him, but to be honest, he didn’t believe that Zhou Ji was the Beast God’s messenger.
If he was really the Beast God’s messenger, why didn’t he stay at the Beast God Temple? Or at the very least, he should have appeared in a large tribe… The quality of life in the Big Bear Tribe was still incomparable to life in those big tribes.
The priest: “I’ll go ask!”
Zhu Zhan: “……”
Was the knowledge required to make things like pottery something that could be obtained simply by asking? Wasn’t that too simplistic?!
Take their Giant Pig Tribe as an example – they had always been envious of the Beast God Temple and wished that they could make pottery on their own. Yet what was the result? They had researched it for a very long time and still hadn’t figured it out.
As for going to the Beast God Temple and convincing their people to switch allegiances… The people there had great faith in the Beast God and would rather commit suicide than divulge any of its secrets!
However, the priest was full of confidence regarding Zhou Ji.
So, that day, Zhou Ji was basking in the sun at the entrance to his own cave when the priest came over and asked, “Zhou Ji, do you know anything about pottery?”
Zhou Ji: “Yes.”
See? He knew that Zhou Ji would know! The priest looked at Zhou Ji, “This pottery thing sounds very useful… How is it made?”
“Shape it out of mud and then burn it with fire.” Zhou Ji said.
Zhou Ji had always felt that stone tools weren’t easy to use. Now that the priest had mentioned pottery… It suddenly occurred to him that they could fire bake clay to make pottery.
To say nothing else, clay pots were definitely better than stone ones!
Before, the people in the tribe had spent all their time working hard in order to get enough to eat, and it wasn’t convenient for him to have people set aside hunting for the sake of firing clay. Now however, they could give it a try.
He didn’t actually know the specific techniques required, and just firing clay probably wouldn’t create proper pottery… but they could give it a go. What was there to be afraid of?
Of course, Zhou Ji didn’t know how to fire clay bricks. He had seen pictures of cave life in books before, but he had only flipped and glanced through them and hadn’t paid much attention to it all.
However, he didn’t mind doing some more research into it now.
Zhou Ji had people dig a pit outside of their valley and also sent others out to obtain some mud from the foot of the mountain behind the valley.
Fired pottery couldn’t be made with just any kind of mud. At the very least, soil that was full of detritus was unsuitable for pottery. However, the mud behind the valley was very pure and didn’t have any flowers or grass bits mixed in. It should be usable, right?
If it couldn’t be used, they would just switch to another type.
Zhou Ji lay back in a reclining chair carved out of a giant piece of wood and watched as the people of the tribe bustled about.
The people from the Giant Pig Tribe: “……”
Zhu Zhan: “Are these people crazy? They actually plan to fire pottery!”
The people around Zhu Zhan also had incredulous expressions on their faces, “Is pottery so easy to make?”
“Do they really believe that this person is the messenger of the Beast God?”
“What Beast God’s messenger. I think he looks like a swindler.”
“Everyone is busy, but he’s doing nothing at all…”
……
Although they were told that Zhou Ji was the one who had fixed Zhu Zhan’s leg, the people of the Giant Pig Tribe didn’t actually believe it. They were also unable to summon up any goodwill towards Zhou Ji.
Everyone in the Big Bear Tribe was bustling about, but this Zhou Ji was incredibly relaxed, which made it difficult for others to like him.
“Let them mess around! They’ll soon discover that they’re doing pointless work.” Zhu Zhan stated, “However, this tribe really did help us out… Shouldn’t we go and do something for them?”
“We can join the hunting team?” One of Zhu Zhan’s subordinates suggested this. Zhu Zhan’s leg hadn’t fully healed yet, and his recovery would take at least half a month. During this half a month, they planned to remain here in the tribe.
It was dangerous outside. It was better if they remained in the tribe so that he could recover fully first.
“That’s possible.” Zhu Zhan agreed, “You guys go and join their hunting team to help out!”
Having confirmed their plans with Zhu Zhan, Zhu Zhan’s subordinates immediately went to find Xiong Ye who was in charge of the hunting team, “We’re all experienced soldiers who can join you on hunts.”
“Are you able to catch elephant birds alive?” Xiong Ye asked them.
The people of the Giant Pig Tribe: Why would they want to catch it alive?!
After hunting the Barosaurus, Xiong Ye had once again become idle.
The priest had led the elderly and weak people of the tribe to try out this pottery firing thing and had sent out some of the weaker youths of the tribe to dig up mud and smoke meat, so Xiong Ye was left responsible for leading some of the stronger men and women of their tribe to go out hunting while patrolling and inspecting their territory.
A tribe needed to be very familiar with its own territory.
After making one such trip, Xiong Ye began to think about catching elephant birds and raising them.
Few fruits and vegetables could be eaten in winter, and Zhou Ji didn’t like most types of dinosaur meat… It would be great if they could catch some elephant birds to raise!
However, elephant birds weren’t going to be caught simply because he wanted to catch them… Not only was he unable to find young elephant birds to bring back and raise, he couldn’t find any elephant birds at all.
Xiong Ye felt quite powerless.
The people of the Giant Pig Tribe, who felt that they were already very rich in experience, felt even more powerless. They were good at fighting and were very lethal, but they were unable to catch things alive.
They usually used their claws and teeth to bite their prey to death right away!
While everyone over at the Big Bear Tribe was busy, Mao Huo, who had been sent over by the Giant Tiger Tribe to scout for information, had already returned back to the Giant Tiger Tribe.
He arrived in front of Hu Tian and said anxiously, “Tribal chief, that Big Bear Tribe can’t be underestimated! I saw them hunt down a Barosaurus. Such a big Barosaurus was taken down and almost had its neck bitten off!”
“What else?” Hu Tian, “What happened to the Carcharodontosaurus and the others that we drove there?”
“We didn’t see any Carcharodontosaurus. It’s very likely that it’s already been killed.” Mao Huo said.
Regardless of whether it was the Carcharodontosaurus or Barosaurus, they were all dinosaurs that the Giant Tiger Tribe wouldn’t easily dare to provoke.
They were able to deal with behemoths like those, but it would come at a great price. Since that was the case, they were naturally unwilling to deal with those types of dinosaurs unless they had no choice.
Now, the Big Bear Tribe had actually managed to deal with them?
Hu Tian’s eyebrows drew together in a frown, but he didn’t give up on his idea of attacking the Big Bear Tribe. Instead, his interest in fighting them only increased.
He really wanted to see exactly what was so impressive about the Big Bear Tribe!
Of course, he wouldn’t make his move so simply…
Hu Tian asked, “Isn’t there a group of slaves that isn’t doing so well?”
Mao Huo had been away from the tribe for half a month and didn’t know anything about this, but the rest of the tribe knew. Someone immediately stepped forward and said, “Yes, tribal chief. There’s a batch of slaves that can’t hold up for much longer. We were preparing to take them outside and kill them off.”
When a beastmen died, they would turn back into their human forms. None of them ate people––that kind of behavior would make them subconsciously feel sick.
Therefore, they usually drove those useless slaves out of the tribe to kill them off there.
Sometimes, they didn’t bother to even kill them… Those people wouldn’t live for long anyway.
“Give those people some food and have them go to the Big Bear Tribe.” Hu Tian instructed.
Those obsolete slaves were already in poor health. It was a waste of food to keep them alive. Since they didn’t want to keep them anymore, they might as well send them to the Big Bear Tribe and have them deal with them!
If the Big Bear Tribe didn’t take care of them, they may cause some disputes to arise. But if they took them in, they soon wouldn’t have enough food…
While Hu Tian was making this decision, Xiong Ye was feeding the lemur.
This little monkey from the Green Hill Tribe was really too cute!
Xiong Ye would usually feed him something from time to time when he saw him. For example, this time, he was feeding the little monkey a strawberry.
This was a type of fruit that Zhou Ji had found and brought back. It couldn’t be left for long and needed to be eaten soon after it was picked.
The lemur held a strawberry the size of its own body and gnawed on it non-stop. Within a short time, it had finished off the strawberry and its stomach bulged a little from the meal.
Xiong Ye: “Its stomach is so big that it looks like it’s pregnant with another small monkey.”
Zhou Ji: “……”
Xiong Ye poked at the little monkey’s tummy as he spoke, his expression full of enjoyment and pleasure.
Zhou Ji: “……” Was Xiong Ye flirting with others in front of him?
Speaking of which, it would be great if Xiong Ye could become so small. If that was the case, he could hold Xiong Ye in the palm of his hand.
Xiong Ye was teasing the little monkey when the lemur suddenly transformed back into a human. The boy abruptly knelt in front of Xiong Ye and kowtowed, “Lord Xiong, can you help me save my parents? Please!”
This little lemur had remained in the Big Bear Tribe because his father had told him before not to return if he was ever able to escape.
The days he had spent in the Big Bear Tribe had really been very good. After all, when he had just arrived at the tribe, the Big Bear Tribe had just caught a Barosaurus that weighed over ten tons.
That was over ten thousands kilograms of meat!
He had eaten particularly well these past few days.
But in his heart, he still remembered his own people. On the other hand, the Big Bear Tribe had basically forgotten about him.
Compared to the little monkey who was a nearly invisible presence, everyone’s attention was more focused on the people of the Giant Pig Tribe who were much more eye-catching.
Now that he had met Xiong Ye who seemed to like him a lot, he knelt down and bowed his head.
“We can’t win against the Giant Tiger Tribe.” Xiong Ye said. “Otherwise, we definitely would go there to save everyone. Our tribe is short of hands right now!”