Messages From Mama Earth
by Miriam E. Neiberg
We are scions of a proud people, living on an island away from the Others. That’s what we called those who lived on the mainland with their cars, airplanes, and handheld telephones that seemed to manipulate their every waking minute, never allowing them the chance to look up from their typing. Father would vehemently announce that for all their steel toys and schooling, they were not happier than we.
As children, we weren’t so sure. We all dreamed of flying in one of those helicopters that were constantly flying over our island, relentlessly searching for places where buried treasures had been hiding in our lands for centuries.
But we knew the Others would never find what they sought. We were the Adamasota, the treasure hiders.
Centuries ago, great galleons swept across the daunting seas, their bellies filled with gold, silver and various gems irreverently looted from lands newly found and exploited. Fierce storms caught unlucky ships, causing them to run aground. The captains, not wishing their plunder to fall into enemy hands, would order the men to bury the treasure.
Throughout the burial procedure, prayers heard only by Mama Earth were mumbled that She guard the precious deposits.
Mama Earth listened and took their whispered pleas to her heart. As time has shown, She has proved herself a uniquely shrewd ally in this never-ending game of treasure hide-and-seek. Even so, current-day treasure hunters obstinately persist on playing the game, not realizing just how it is stacked against them.
Where great cities once stood proud and fearless, their magnificent structures are now tall mounds of black or brown earth. Lush jungles now stand proud, their thick green vegetation deterring only the most determined from combatively cutting through. Even from helicopters high above, all is hidden under the thick canopies of giant green tree crowns. Nothing will betray Mama Earth’s buried secrets.
We, the Adamasota, have always been her trusted helpers. She makes her wishes known to the Receptora of the tribe, the one to whom the wind reveals Mama Earth’s wishes. This honor is envied by all of the tribe.
Tribal lore has it that the first Receptora was a young woman who woke up one morning with a strange and peculiar tale that the wind had told her. The wind explained that her tribe was chosen to aid Mama Earth in her endeavors to keep hidden the spoils laid in her. After much ridicule and angry shouting from her parents, the obstinate maiden was finally taken to the Head Father of the tribe. She proceeded to tell him of a buried treasure, its location, and explicit instructions what to do with it.
The tribe was ordered to rebury it far from the treasure hunters’ reach. In return, the tribe would be blessed with fertile land that would provide their everyday needs without worry or too much toil.
Everything worked well until the Receptora passed away unexpectedly without any sickness or warning. The tribe was dumbfounded, but Head Father came up with a solution taken from the tribe’s history.
In the old days, young children were taken to the graves of the tribe’s wise folk in the hope that the elders’ unique abilities would transfer to a lucky child. The tribe listened, discussed, argued and eventually took their children to the Receptora’s grave, where they were left with blankets and feeble promises. The parents, scared and helpless, were no happier leaving their children behind than the children themselves were at being left behind.
Eventually, a child would emerge from the gravesite with the ability to communicate with the wind. Every now and then a treasure needed to be reburied; the tribe people would stop everything and hasten to do the digging and hiding.
All was quiet and unchanged for centuries until Dr Kenny, the plump, good-hearted treasure hunter showed up. Dr Kenny came with new, more expensive metal toys that showed pictures of what was hidden below the ground without having to do any digging.
He came with ground-penetrating radar machines that he called GPR. These used radar pulses to show subsurface anomalies and changes where objects might have been buried long ago deep in the ground. One of the team men would take the large square box with wheels and traverse across a specific ground area producing data revealing to Dr Kenny the most promising spots to dig.
We had no warning and no time to move things.
Another morning, Dr Kenny came, aimed his cold gray and black square boxes, and strange propeller objects would fly off immediately into the air. We had never seen such things before. These flying machines scared Head Father. He had never encountered these new evil contraptions before. But there was worse.
Dr Kenny brought with him additional new sources of aggravation we could not begin to conceive. We stood aghast, with mouths wide open, not believing the horrors happening above us. The constant annoying drones flying everywhere above us taking pictures of different parts of the island left everything bare and exposed to these mainland strangers. Their solitary goal was to rape Mama Earth and take her possessions “victoriously.”
The day Head Father was shown Lidar results, he fainted. Dr Kenny’s team doctor came quickly. Dr Kenny explained that the Lidar was a light imaging, detection and ranging gadget that visualized the land stripped of all its foliage and trees and showed the naked ground with the ruins of its centuries-hidden pyramids and city walls. Our treasures were about to be exposed, and there was nothing we could do.
Dr Kenny was a reasonable man, and he listened patiently to Head Father’s warnings not to touch the buried trinkets and baubles. He replied that his expedition was expensive and was paid for on the promise that the treasure would be found, bringing much wealth and riches. The sponsors had paid an exorbitant amount of money and expected to be paid back in full with a healthy amount of profit from the newly discovered treasure.
Head Father tried to warn the Others. He told Dr Kenny about past explorers who died of a rare flesh-eating disease. Others had caught malaria and dysentery and narrowly survived. Head Father begged Dr Kenny to end his search and not disturb Mama Earth with his digging, for She was unforgiving. Throughout all his days on earth, Head Father had never witnessed Mama Earth showing mercy to those who mutilated her in order to steal her belongings.
Dr Kenny scoffed at the warnings. Dr Kenny returned to his base camp and Head Father to his hut each fervently believing that his rationale was correct.
That night while sleeping at the Receptora’s grave under the cover her mother had left her, a young girl dreamt of men digging tunnels in the earth and moving all the coins, rings, bracelets and trinkets left deep in Mama Earth’s womb to another place on the island. Somewhere in the background, there was the sound of continuous ocean waves softly caressing the previously undisturbed land.
Amid all this digging and moving. the girl was startled at a new sound she had never heard before. The strange howling and moaning segued to a note held longer than the others. As the song like message became clearer, she focused and listened to it. Although it wasn’t spoken in human voice or even in familiar language, she began to understand what was being spoken to her. The voice wasn’t frightening. She and the voice were two new entities meeting each other for the first time and becoming acquainted one with the other.
Once this new spirit felt comfortable, it gave the girl directions where to put the articles left long ago in the ground.
The girl saw herself being taken to the far end of the island where Mama Earth had pulled away the water from the land decades ago. This was where the tribe was to begin digging and leave Mama Earth her possessions.
When it was done passing instructions, the wind gently blew her warm blanket off her sleeping body, leaving her cold and with no choice but to wake up. She got up, ran to her family and woke them. She told them everything, speaking fast and energetically. They understood at once what had happened to their young daughter and better than she had, herself.
She was immediately taken to Head Father’s hut, and he sent his sons to wake everyone up. There was digging to be done. There was a treasure to hide.
Mama Earth also had a part to play, an important part. She invited the moon to illuminate the sky brightly. The moon acquiesced and accompanied by the ever faithful stars speckled across the sky, lit the night.
Tomorrow Mama Earth will pour her ocean waters back onto this land. Let Dr Kenny use Lidar and GPR all he wants. As usual, Mama Earth is ready for the games and innovations thrown her way. As she has proven many a time, she still has a few moves of her own.
The treasure will be found only when Mama Earth is ready. It will be given only to those chosen by Mama Earth herself.
Copyright © 2022 by Miriam E. Neiberg
