They gathered the herds and flocks to themselves, each tribe discovering a new way of life with its own animal.
Shepherds, and cowherds, and goatherds, every tribe developed its own way of being with the animals they tended.
They domesticated the wolf, and walked beside the bear as an equal.
They lived with them, led them to water, protected them against all of the dangers of the wild. Their animals became sacred to them, totems of spiritual power.
They gave milk and meat, hides and wool, the totem animal gave everything to the tribes, and the tribes learned to see themselves as extended in the herd.
They lived as symbiotes together.
They led the herds up into the mountains, they scaled the lofty peaks, looking for new pastures, and passes, and crossings to other worlds.
They found themselves in the highest places, they found the sacred in the thin air at the top of the world.
They strode across the icy glaciers, and built fires in the snow. They learned in the collective experience that there was no place on Earth that they could not go.
Only the sky was their limit, and they dreamed of sprouting wings. They dreamed of flying from the mountain tops, of reaching out to the touch the sun and stars.
They remembered the sojourn of their forbears.