It was mealtime for the Surging Wave Tribe of the Redwood Natives.
Along the coast of Southern Ridge Redwood, cooking smoke curled into the air. The elderly and the women prepared the ingredients, deboning fish and separating the innards, ready to mix them with the bean mash and bone scraps beside them as feed for the hunting beasts and sea beasts they raised.
The fish meat was stewed in soup pots together with herbs and some kind of beans. To drive out parasites and dispel toxins, they stirred vigorously with ladles. This fish-and-bean paste would be the food for the hunters returning before long.
Those who did not take part in battle or hunting were already fortunate if they could have some leftover minced-meat soup and bean paste.
No matter what, after submitting to Harrison Port, this tribe could eat enough clean food and use better fishing tools, no longer doomed to starve to death.
That was progress.
Those who received food ate in silence, not minding that the freshly cooked meal was scalding hot—in the Redwood Forest, no living thing would wait for your food to cool. The mosquitoes would not, the colonies of fungi would not, and neither would the miasma. If you did not eat it while it was hot, you were being irresponsible toward your own stomach.
The hunting party's return did not interrupt the others' meal either. Only a bountiful harvest could make the tribe celebrate.
The Surging Wave Tribe's coastal village was exceedingly crude, designed for easy dismantling and rebuilding. This was the experience they had gained over many years of fighting storms and towering waves. Yet no matter how crude it was, the buildings were laid out in neat order.
The chief's great tent at the center of the village was covered in