The First Artist was a Woman with No Name

Introduction

The first artist was a woman with no name.

It was quite the accident when it happened. This particular woman, while she loved the other women she worked, gathered, and lived with, couldn't talk to them in the same way they talked to each other.

When she was born, life didn't spring into her as it normally would. She was silent in her mother's arms, unmoving in the swaddle of animal furs. Her mother did the only thing she could: she talked with nature, looking for an answer.

She begged and pleaded to the towering trees and hanging vines, the four winds, the rain drenching the world. It was the mountains that finally answered her call. They offered her a choice: the child's life in exchange for a gift of their choosing. She would give anything to see her daughter live and grow, and she made sure the mountains knew that.

But what the mountains asked for was not hers to give. The child's life in exchange for the child's voice. As long as her feet were on the earth, she would be granted life. It was an impossible choice. How could she agree? How could she refuse?

In the end, she agreed to the mountains' trade, and she brought her smiling baby girl home. The mountains still use her voice to sing with the wind and tell stories to those who are patient and brave enough to listen. And they held true to their promise, granting life to the girl as she laughed and cried and grew up, no worse off for living without a voice.

The girl, who soon became a woman, was loved by everyone in her community.Somehow, she always picked the biggest, juiciest berries and knew what places to avoid because danger lurked. And the women she gathered with began to pick up on her signals and signs. She brought a strength to her group without even realizing it and, because of her, her family and community grew as well.

But, back to the story of how this woman with no name and no voice became the world's first artist.

She spent her days as others did in that time: doing what she could to survive. There was no shortage of dangers lurking in the shadows or preying on the early humans in broad daylight. Despite the mountains' gift, it seemed as if nature was determined to see humans fail. Maybe it was because of her gift or maybe it was natural ability, but the woman learned what to do from the animals around them. Learned which plants were safe to eat and how to go about collecting and preparing them. And while the men were off on their hunts, she shared these secrets with the other women of her tribe.

Together, they decided they would not just survive, they would thrive.

She was known by no name other than the Woman. It was typical for children to name themselves in that time. That meant they survived the hardest part of life—the first five years—and were thus more likely to survive to adulthood. The Woman's mother refused to take away anything else that belonged to her daughter, so her daughter remained the Woman.

Because of the structure of their early society, the men didn't know about the Woman's particular skills and knowledge. And thus, this is where the story begins.