758: Chapter 749: White Child Returns 758: Chapter 749: White Child Returns Overwhelmed with surprise, Gao Yang turned toward the source of the sound.
Next to a large tree, only a dozen meters away, stood a little girl, whom he recognized nonetheless.
“Mupa!
You’re Mupa, I’m White Child, I’m White Child!”
The girl named Mupa, bare-chested, was holding a tortoise in one hand and leaning on the large tree with the other, gazing timidly at Gao Yang.
But after hearing Gao Yang’s words, Mupa cried out in delight and hurriedly ran towards him.
Gao Yang and the girl named Mupa embraced each other.
However, after holding each other tightly for a moment, Gao Yang immediately pushed Mupa away and, grabbing her shoulders, urgently asked, “Where’s Kumtom?
Where are they, who are these two girls?
Where’s Kalisar?”
Mupa turned and pointed toward the forest behind her.
“Kalisar is at home, she’s cooking.
Dad’s not here; he and my brothers left many days ago.
These two are from the Kaisen tribe, we’ve had a few extra people join our tribe; they’re my brothers’ wives.”
While Mupa was speaking to Gao Yang, he heard a woman’s loud voice from the other end shouting, “Mupa, where are you, come back.”
Gao Yang recognized the voice and immediately roared, “Kalisar, Kalisar, I’m White Child, I’ve come back, I’m here!”
While Gao Yang was speaking, he definitely used the language of the Akuri tribe, Catherine and Adele couldn’t understand anything, standing off to the side with smiles, while seeing the ecstatic expression on Gao Yang’s face, Adele whispered, “I’ve never seen Gao this happy, now I’m happy too.”
Catherine smiled and said, “Yes, it’s indeed a day worth celebrating.”
Gao Yang ran toward the direction of the voices, hopping and skipping.
After taking a few steps, four or five women emerged from the woods, all laughing loudly upon seeing Gao Yang.
Gao Yang stopped in front of one of the women and shouted, “Kalisar, I’ve come back!”
Kalisar, the wife of Kumtom and the oldest woman in the tribe, was standing with another woman who was also one of Chieftain Kumtom’s wives.
The others were all Kumtom’s daughters.
Among the older women, there was also a five- or six-year-old boy and a child being cradled in the arms.
Having lived side by side for three years, each considered the other as family.
Reunited after a long separation, the women naturally gathered around Gao Yang, clapping their hands and dancing and singing.
After the excitement died down a bit, Kalisar took Gao Yang’s hand, looking him over with a happy smile, and after a long while, said with a face full of relief, “My White Child, who are those two strange white women, are they your women?”
In the Akuri tribe’s language system, there is no word for ‘friend.’ They have terms for kin and one’s own people, and for those from the same ethnic group but from different tribes, but the concept of a ‘friend’ simply does not exist in their vocabulary.
Gao Yang puzzled over how best to introduce Catherine and the others for a long time.
The most fitting description seemed to be ‘his women.’ After nodding, Gao Yang smiled and said, “Yes, they are my women.”
While Gao Yang found two strangers among the Akuri tribe, he also saw four women he didn’t recognize in the tribe, one of whom was holding a child.
Gao Yang pointed at the woman holding the child and asked, “Who are these people?”
Kalisar laughed and said, “After you left, we encountered a tribe, and we exchanged women from our tribe.
Her name is Totori; she’s Balix’s woman, and she has already given birth to Balix’s child.”
During Gao Yang’s time, there had been no dealings with other tribes.
The reason was simple; the Akuri tribe’s ethnic group was on the brink of extinction, and it wasn’t easy to encounter tribes from the same ethnic group on the plains.
The so-called exchange of women was actually about mutual marriages between tribes, involving men and women of marriageable age.
Since eligible partners were scarce, all the of-age girls were married off, and girls from the other tribe were taken in return, without considering whether the numbers were equivalent, because in the patrilineal primitive society, polygamy was not an issue.
This time the Akuri tribe had married off four women but had received six in return.
Thus, Gao Yang found that he knew far fewer of the girls, but now there were many he didn’t recognize.
Balix, Balix, and Kusto each had two wives, and Balix even had a child, ensuring the tribe would continue.
After briefly chatting, Gao Yang anxiously asked, “Where are Kumtom and the others, where did they go?”
Kalisar’s smile vanished from her face.
She pointed to the north and said with a heavy heart, “They went to war, for revenge, against a tribe we do not know.
White Child, Mupa’s sisters are all dead, and all the children traded from our tribe are dead.”
Gao Yang did not know how old Mupa really was, and as her mother, Kalisar did not know either.
Now it seemed like Mupa should be around eleven or twelve, while girls older than her had already been married off to another tribe.
Mupa’s sisters are all dead, meaning the four girls from the Akuri tribe who were of marriageable age had all died.
Upon hearing Kalisar’s words, Gao Yang felt as if struck by lightning, and he immediately froze, having lived together for three years, he of course knew those four girls.
The children of Kumtom were like his own siblings.
Suddenly hearing that he had lost four sisters, how could Gao Yang not be shocked.
“Kalisar, tell me what happened!
What is going on, why did this happen, tell me quickly!”
Kalisar pointed at the two little girls Gao Yang had first seen, and said with a face full of sorrow, “Their tribe is in the north of us, not too far, about two days’ run, their tribe came to the forest before us as the grasslands were becoming too dangerous.
Once our two tribes met, we exchanged women, and then we migrated here.
We agreed that if we were to migrate, we would do so together.”
While speaking, Kalisar looked heartbroken, and some of the women nearby started crying, others began to comfort Kalisar, and after some time of crying and quasi-singing, Kalisar continued, “We have lived here for a long time, and there is no game left nearby.
Kumtom wanted to migrate, and he also wanted to see my daughters, then he went to the Kaisen tribe in the north, but he found that the Kaisen tribe had been destroyed.”
Kalisar again pointed to the two little girls, who still had curious and slightly terrified expressions, and cried, “A group of people wearing clothes, with those loud bows and arrows you gave us, attacked their tribe.
Everyone died, those strange people killed all the men, captured all the women, tortured them for a long time before killing them.
These two were outside playing, so they were not discovered.
They hid for several days then returned to the tribe, stayed for a long time until Kumtom found them and brought them back.”
Gao Yang’s heart was bleeding.
He did not understand what was wrong with the world.
Whether it was the Akuri tribe or the Kaisen tribe, which belonged to the same ethnic group, both were primitive.
They were unobtrusive to the world, relying solely on inherently insecure hunting, yet these primitives were very kind; they never harmed anyone.
Yet, for these harmless primitives, those half-evolved, possessing a more advanced civilization but intolerant of them, whether it be the nomadic Dinka people, the Nuer, or some rebels equipped with lethal weapons, anyone who encountered these primitive tribes would kill as they wished, never regarding people from tribes like the Akuri as their own kind.
A major reason why the Akuri tribe had always been migrating was to avoid those semi-civilized barbarians.
In some stable countries, life was somewhat better for primitive tribes like the Akuri, but in South Sudan, which had long been plagued by war and was on the brink of more conflict, primitive tribes received no attention from modern society and were in a tragic predicament of being slaughtered.
The Akuri tribe was quite fortunate to have guns, which somewhat averted a catastrophe.
In a place like South Sudan, if a primitive tribe’s people are wiped out, no one notices, no one even knows.
Gao Yang had already experienced the tragedy of his entire tribe being exterminated once before, but not long after, he lived through it again, and this time, four of the girls he considered as his sisters were among those killed.
After taking a deep breath, Gao Yang clenched his fists tightly.
He had a wicked fury inside him with nowhere to vent, and now he understood why he saw Kusto wearing revenge makeup in the video.
After a long exhale, Gao Yang said solemnly to Kalisar, “When did this happen, and where did Kumtom go?
Where did they go for revenge!”
The Akuri tribe had a very backward concept of time.
They could only calculate time by sunrise and sunset, beyond twenty days were simply distinguished as the rainy season and the dry season.
After pondering for a long time, Kalisar finally said loudly, “It’s been a long time, the Kaisen tribe disappeared last dry season, and Kumtom and the others went to avenge, and it has already been ten days.”
Looking at the two palms Kalisar stretched out, Gao Yang said softly, “I understand, I know now, Kalisar.
White Child has returned, so I will also join the tribe’s war of revenge.
Do you know where Kumtom and the others went?”