The First Artist was a Woman with No Name

From Then On

Ever since that day, humans kept their promise and so did the spirits. Humans were safe, interacting with spirits on a limited basis as they grew and expanded and migrated and grew and expanded.

But, cautious of the spirits' power and what would happen if they received so much human blood in the monthly sacrifices, the Woman altered the first sacrifice, limiting the growth of the spirits' power while keeping her promise. The day of the sacrifice, when the first kill of the day was brought back to the camp, the Woman drained the animal of its blood, filling a hollow rock almost to the brim. Once she was done, she pricked her finger and squeezed a few drops into it. The assumption was that a few drops of human blood was powerful enough to mask the bowl full of animal blood, but a small enough quantity to prevent the spirits from growing too powerful.

When I'tepah showed up that night at the sacrificial ceremony, he drained the contents of the rock. After he finished it, he appeared taller and stronger, laughing in the faces of the humans gathered before receding in the night.

The trick had worked, and this practice continued in each place that humanity settled.

The Woman's talent for art grew in those early years. She painted all that she could, all that she knew. She recreated the scene with I'tepah and Oba, leaving out Ganna and Bawa so that they could live a relatively normal life among the tribe. Scenes of the sacrificial ceremony and the few drops of human blood that must be added to the animal blood. And mundane things as well. Stories of exceptional hunts, where the dangerous animals liked to stalk their prey, and which plants would lead to a healthy tribe versus the ones that would lead to a painful death.

And above all, the signatures of their tribe. Handprints of every shape and size littered the walls, leaving the marks of themselves to connect with the future generations who would inhabit the caves, keeping their stories alive. The stories of the first people.

The Woman was not alone in her pursuits. Women and girls from the tribe would sit and learn from her while the men were off on their hunts. The skill spread among the women and traveled with them when they saw it as their time to leave. The men came around to the craft as well. New skills were being developed, such as weapon-building, but the few men who would learn to paint were happy for the skill and time away from blood and battle.

The Woman gained a greater understanding of her power, as well. Her mother told her the story of her birth and how the mountains, Oba, had answered her prayers. While she thought the spirit's promise, that she would be granted life so long as her feet were on the ground, meant that she would live her life as a normal human, time proved her wrong.

She watched as her mother, her love, her children, and her community grew up, lived full, wonderful lives, and died in the natural cycle, while she was untouched by both time and death. The Woman looked just as she did when she first stood up to I'tepah, the spirit who had taken her tribe away.

Eventually, it became too painful watching her descendants die before her eyes, so she moved on. Entire communities of people were migrating all the time. She joined the next party that left, following the rivers and the game up the continent until she thought they went as far as they could go. But beyond the seas was more land. And so, she went.

She continued to paint. New places offered new pigments and new sights and animals to immortalize on cave walls. New people with new skills that had to be recorded. Canoe-building, hut-making, agriculture, wolves and the companionship they offered.

The spirits were present in the new lands as well. The Woman had grown accustomed to recognizing them and would sit and talk with them, learning more about the world around them. New gods rose and fell in congruence with the rise and fall of empires, and the Woman recorded those gods too, their impact on her people and the world.

The strange thing about being unable to die was that the Woman could see how the world and people changed around her. The more she moved around, from the largest landmasses to the smallest islands, the more she noticed how her dark skin stood out, unlike in her birthplace. Opinions of her varied but were generally forgotten when she taught others her art skills.

Thousands of years passed in this way. The Woman was as much a part of the past as she was the present. Her touch could be seen around the world. What started as crude cave paintings sharpened to precise artistic ability. She taught the greats before they were great and lived long past them to see their work elevated to such high praise. And yet their accolades never mentioned the woman who taught them.

Particularly, as recorded time, a fairly new concept to her, would place the events around the 14th and 15th centuries, the men of the Renaissance, whose works set the standard for greatness. Even after millennia, the false credit given to those men grated on her nerves. She taught less and less. The Woman did not practice art for the credit it gave, but rather as an instrument to record and capture the world around her in the time that the work was created.

Still later on, she began to use her art in a more purposeful way. The water spirits of the world had grown agitated and fearsome, the constant presence of human in their environs leading to resentment and violence. Sea travel became dangerous, with storms and waves cracking hulls of ships, bringing sailors to their watery deaths. Talented sailors were usually able to avoid destruction, but not everyone was a talented sailor.

The Woman talked with the water spirits, attempted to persuade them to cease in their crusade against humanity, one that was so familiar to her.

But they did not listen and did not stop.

Taking matters into her own hands, the Woman did what she did best. She painted. She painted warnings to sailors in particularly dangerous areas, signs that quickly became common knowledge, encouraging them to go alternative routes in the waters of less vengeful water spirits. Those who thought to ignore the warnings and brave the dangerous waters regretted their decisions with their dying breathes as waves and monsters pulled them under.

Like that, humanity was back on track. Shipping lanes and trade routes flourished under the Woman's warnings. Ocean deaths occurred less frequently.

And that made the water spirits angry.

They knew it was the doing of the Woman, who had talked to them and begged them to stop. Through cunning and clever ways, they learned her story. How she was granted life so long as her feet touched the earth and her art and the powers she had learned and refined over the millennia. They remembered other stories as well, of other immortals and how they have died at the hands of immortals and spirits and monsters.

One night, as the Woman was painting her newest warning over a dangerous group of spirits, they felt emboldened and acted. They shot out of the water and to her perch on the cliff, attempting to pull her off.

The Woman was not stupid. She expected this action and almost welcomed it. She had been free of death for so long, against her will at the deal her mother made when she was just born. While she didn't blame her mother, she was ready to move on. As she let the water spirits pull her off the cliff and into the dark ocean water, her mind drifted to one of the first paintings she ever did, a premonition of what was to come. Her and Ngobi, with a little baby between them. With the air leaving her lungs she could almost see their faces. She had just one thought.

I'm coming home.