[New World Calendar: Early Cycle of Long Sun, Month 12-13, ~ One Year Post-Arrival, 1478 A.D. – Village of the K'aru Tribe]
The Cycle of Clearing Skies gave way to the Cycle of Long Sun. The days grew hotter, the air drier, and the vibrant greens of the jungle took on a dustier hue under the relentless solar glare. The K'aru stream, once a rushing torrent, shrank back to a more languid flow, its waters clearer. It was roughly a year since I had awakened on that alien beach, a soul torn from one existence and thrust into another. Twelve months. One full cycle of K'aru seasons.
The anniversary, unacknowledged by anyone but myself, weighed heavily. One year closer to 1492. One year out of fifteen. The thought was a cold stone in my gut, a constant undercurrent to the rhythm of my days among the K'aru. My progress had been undeniable: I spoke their language with a growing, if still imperfect, fluency. I understood their customs, participated in their communal labor, shared their food, and even, in my own small way, contributed to their well-being through repairs, stories, and my rudimentary "kanta-mata" records. I had a place, a niche, tools of their making in my hands. I was Aris-nima-K'aru, Aris-friend-of-the-K'aru.
Yet, the immensity of my foreknowledge, of the storm gathering far across the vast ocean, felt more oppressive than ever. What good was my belonging if this entire vibrant culture, these people who had shown me cautious kindness, were destined for devastation? The thought spurred a new urgency within me, a shift from passive integration to a more active, albeit still profoundly cautious, consideration of how I might begin to sow seeds of change – changes that could bolster their resilience, address their vulnerabilities, without shattering the delicate framework of their ancient ways.
During my time with Mara, assisting her with her herbs and remedies, I had observed their approach to hygiene. The K'aru were clean people by the standards of many pre-industrial societies I'd studied; they bathed regularly in the stream, and their dwellings were generally well-kept. However, their understanding of disease transmission, the miasma theory that had plagued my own world's history for so long, was understandably absent. Water for drinking and cooking was often drawn from the same areas of the stream used for bathing, albeit upstream. Waste was disposed of in designated spots, but sometimes uncomfortably close to water sources or food preparation areas, especially during the rainy season when venturing further was difficult.
The coughs that had plagued the village during the Cycle of First Rains had eventually subsided with Mara's shimu-mata brew and the drier weather, but the memory lingered. It was a stark reminder of their vulnerability. Could I, without appearing to criticize or introduce alien superstitions, subtly influence healthier practices?
I began with myself. When assisting Mara with food preparation – a task I was sometimes allowed now, such as grinding nuts or scaling fish – I made a deliberate point of washing my hands meticulously with uma from a clean gourd before touching any ingredients, and again afterwards. Initially, Mara watched this with a curious frown. "Aris, nima teka?" (Aris, hands dirty?) she asked once, her tone neutral. "Nani-ma, Mara," I replied. "Aris arau… sima pia." (No, Mara. Aris's way… good for cleanliness/purity.) I used pia, a word associated with ritual cleanliness as well as physical cleanness, hoping to frame it as a personal custom rather than a judgment on hers. She grunted, unconvinced but not forbidding. Over time, my consistent practice became just another of "Aris's quirks." But I noticed Liara, when she occasionally helped Mara alongside me, sometimes began to rinse her hands more thoroughly too, perhaps out of imitation or simple good sense.
Food preservation was another area. The K'aru were experts at smoking meat and fish, and sun-drying certain fruits. But I'd seen stores of nuts or dried roots succumb to mold or insect infestation in the damp heat. My 2018 knowledge contained fragments about the importance of airtight storage, of specific herbs that could deter pests. I had no access to pottery glazes or complex sealing methods. But perhaps, I thought, some of the resins and saps the K'aru used for waterproofing their small canoes or sealing spear bindings could be adapted for storage pots, if applied meticulously. This was a more complex intervention. I started by observing the potters, usually older women, seeing how they worked the clay (kama-wi), how they fired their wares. I asked Ankor about the different resins they used. "Aris, kama-wi sima?" (Aris, clay good/interested in clay?) he asked, amused. "Ao. Kama-wi… K'aru arau sima-kai." (Yes. Clay… K'aru skill very good.) I praised their existing skill first. "Aris anka… ayu kama-wi sima." (Aris thinks… helps clay be good/stronger.) He was intrigued enough to show me the different types of tree sap they collected. I began to experiment, on discarded pot shards, with applying thin layers of certain resins after firing, then re-heating them gently, trying to create a less porous surface. My initial attempts were failures – the resin bubbled, or the shard cracked. But it was a direction for thought, a long-term project.
The K'aru were not agriculturalists in the way my old world understood it. They lived in harmony with the jungle's bounty. Yet, I noticed they unconsciously practiced a form of proto-agriculture: sparing certain prolific fruit trees when clearing small patches for hut construction, sometimes even transplanting young, desirable saplings closer to the village. Liara had once shown me a patch of fiery-red chima peppers her mother tended near their hut. I wouldn't dream of suggesting they clear vast tracts of forest for planting – that would destroy the very ecosystem that sustained them and likely be met with spiritual horror. But perhaps, I mused, the yields of their existing favored plants could be improved through more deliberate tending, through understanding which plants thrived in which specific micro-environments within and around the village. This was a thought for much later, requiring deep botanical knowledge I was still only beginning to acquire from Mara.
My "kanta-mata" records had found a small, accepted niche. While Haru and the other hunters still relied primarily on their prodigious memories, Ankor would occasionally ask me to "draw the story" of a planned foraging route if it was to an unfamiliar area, or to make a visual list of items needed for a specific task. It was seen as a helpful supplement, an "Aris-thing," not a replacement for K'aru ways.
Kael, naturally, viewed all these subtle shifts and my quiet observations with a jaundiced eye. My meticulous hand-washing, my interest in resins, my increasingly detailed questions to Ankor or Mara about K'aru lore or resources – he saw it all. "Aris… anka K'aru teka," he declared one evening to a group of warriors, his voice loud enough for me to overhear from my shelter. (Aris… thinks K'aru ways are bad/flawed.) "Aris arau… nani-ma K'aru arau! Wiru… koro!" (Aris's ways… not K'aru ways! The spirits… will be angry!) No one openly agreed with him, not with Tekum's continued sanction of my presence, but his words sowed seeds of unease, particularly among the more traditional or fearful. I knew I had to tread with the utmost caution. My desire to help could easily be misconstrued as arrogance or, worse, a spiritual threat.
One day, a young child, not Iktan but one of his playmates, fell violently ill with a severe stomach ailment after drinking from a stagnant pool of water left by the receding rains, a spot closer to the village than the main stream. Mara was summoned, and she worked tirelessly with her remedies, her face etched with concern. The child was very weak. The incident sent a chill through me. This was exactly the kind of preventable illness my foreknowledge screamed about. I watched Mara's efforts, her use of specific boiled roots and soothing chants. I didn't dare interfere, didn't dare suggest the simple act of boiling all drinking water, especially for the vulnerable. The concept of invisible "germs" was millennia away from their understanding. Such a suggestion from me could undermine Mara's authority, brand me as a dangerous fool, and achieve nothing.
The child, thankfully, eventually began to recover, testament to Mara's skill and the child's own resilience. But the incident solidified a resolve within me. I couldn't remain a passive observer indefinitely. I had to find ways, however small, however indirect, to introduce concepts that could protect them, not as "Aris's ways," but perhaps framed as forgotten "ancestor knowledge" from my own "tribe's" stories, or as ideas gleaned from observing the "wisdom of the jungle" itself.
As the Cycle of Long Sun reached its peak, the village prepared for a small seasonal ceremony, a giving of thanks to the Wiru of the forest for the bounty of the recent hunts and the continued clearing skies. I was not expected to participate directly, but Tekum, in a gesture that spoke volumes, indicated that I could observe from a respectful distance. It was a simple, heartfelt ritual involving offerings of food, tobacco smoke, and chanted invocations led by Mara and Tekum. As I watched, I felt the profound spiritual connection the K'aru had with their world, a connection my own "advanced" civilization had long since severed and forgotten. My task, I realized with growing clarity, was not to replace their world with mine, but to find a way to weave the most vital, life-preserving threads from my past into the enduring fabric of their present, strengthening it against the coming storm without unraveling its soul. The sower's hand must be gentle, the seeds chosen with wisdom. And time, I knew, was a relentless current.