he knew before she did when the elders of her people came and left gifts for the coming child , and he knew before she did when soldiers and settlers came and massacred her people , all the men and the women and children , scarcely a hundred of them and then gone , everyone , without a trace but the added richness of the soil where the bodies were buried and the blood and the ash from the burned village seeped into the soil where white farmers would plant their crops until they themselves were overtaken by disaster , seemingly less violent but ultimately as catastrophic : those very farmers and their children run down by a civilization that raped the earth even as men continued to kill each other and rape women .