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Reading Notes Bone From A Dry Sea (Then sections)

Your notes should include unfamiliar or technical vocabulary terms as well as examples of concepts and theories covered in class lectures. This is NOT a summary of the chapter.

• 1-7 Summary
  • communication

• • Use of stones

• • Development of thought

*16-23

• • It is Difficult to tell the story because we have to change Li's thoughts and images inside her head into words, and give all of the people names.

• • These animals lived in a much different place then the one Vinny and the archaeological team were studying, because they were digging in a dirt, sunny, savanna-type environment, while Li lived near an ocean. Li had advantages to the geology of the place she lived in long ago. For instance, she used her webbed feet and hands to get shrimp out of a little puddle so she could eat when she was hungry.

• • Li's instincts were what told her to go in the shade of the tree as opposed to going on the hot beach, while her geographic imagination told her how to get there.

*33-41 Summary

• • Concept of death and an after life

The chapter starts off with Li wondering about a stranger who had recently joined their tribe. The stranger's baby had died, and Li is very determined to find out what life, death, and dreams all mean. She even considers if she needs to go where the baby had gone to figure everything out. Li cannot grasp the concept of life, but she knows that she is close, she just needs to find her knowledge. Li is beginning to have her first big questions and, when she does, her brain will be much more advanced than anyone else her her time. EX: "She felt she was close to something enormous, some knowledge- not a piece of knowledge like how to bash a mussel open on a rock or the way the stars move- but a whole knowledge. The knowledge that had the shape of a question." (pg 34)

• • Role of food sharing and bonding

During this chapter of the book the children of the tribe join in for a game. It seems normal for them to play games and have fun together because this is the type of bonding they do in order to stay connected as a tribe. The more time they spend together, the more trust they can have.If nobody in the tribe spent any time together then sharing food would be difficult because the people who came up with ideas or found food would not want to share. They would keep it all for themselves, and with everyone on their own, nobody would survive. Food sharing and bonding are key components in having a successful tribe because they make the group more intimate, and they keep each other protected. -Camila Chabayta Sources: Bone from a Dry Sea

• 50-55 Summary
  • Role of ritual and leadership

In this chapter, Li is again dancing with the dolphins when, all of a sudden, more dolphins come for a hunt, making Li feel triumphant. However, the adult male (who happens to be Li's uncle) Presh did not like seeing someone else have more triumph than him. Since Li was just a child, instead of fighting her, he made it seem like he was the one that made her swim with the dolphins, putting him in the leadership position. "So he made her triumph into his triumph, telling them to praise Li and himself as the bringers of wonders"(52).

• • Adornment

An adornment is basically an ornament. In the chapter, Li's mother gives birth, and the father of the child, Tong, gives Ma-Ma a shining shell with a hole in it. Li then threaded her mom's hair through the shell. While it ended up not lasting for long, everyone admired it and added to Ma-Ma's status. -Ellie Davidson Sources: Bone from a Dry Sea pgs. 50-55

• 68-75 Summary
  • Importance of Ritual challenge

In Bone from a Dry Sea, a challenge of leadership is supposed to built on gradually, making the current leader nervous and causing the rest of the tribe to get anxious. This way, the group is relieved when the confrontation occurs, ready for the tension to wash away and for everything to return to normal. The challenge ritual, transpiring directly before the fight, is rigorous, intended to tire the opposers. Consequently, if the challenge turns into a full-on fight, one combatant will be tired and may surrender easily, proving that he is not ready to be leader and keeping either opponent from getting seriously hurt. In the story, Greb chooses to stage the fight when not many people are around, depriving Presh of his many supporters. Presh and Greb put on a big display, but finally Presh decides that he must fight Greb to finish the challenge.

• • Consequences of not following ritual and customs(Toynbee)

In Bone from a Dry Sea, Greb refuses to follow the challenge rituals and the customs. He wins on accident, and the people half-heartedly praise him during his victory dance. When Ma-Ma turns her back and refuses to acknowledge his leadership, he strikes her and seizes Li. Deciding that he has gone too far, the tribe rescues Li and fights Greb. He tries to counter all of them, but there are too many of them and he ends up being thrust out of the tribe and swims awkwardly away, down the beach by himself.

Helen Dodd

Sources: Bone from a Dry Sea pages 68-75

• 86-94 Summary
  • The tribe's interaction with the surrounding environment

Li and her tribe greatly depend on their environment, and their interactions with it play a huge role in the tribe's way of life. One way they interact is using materials on the beach to make a bandage for Presh's leg. Li uses a bundle of wrack, a creeper, and a sun-bleached branch to make a splint for Presh, who's leg is badly injured and broken. All of the materials she used, she found right around her, in the environment. This was a very important "discovery", because if Li hadn't fixed Presh's leg with the splint, he wouldn't have been able to be leader, leaving the tribe leader-less.

• • The importance of the pool

Going to the pool is a very important and happy part of being in the tribe. It is neccesary to go there to get fresh water, but also a time of joy for the tribe. When there, the tribe would happily splash in the water, all quarrels forgotten. The tribe visits the pool twice a month, and while there, everyone is happy.

-Julia Giordano Sources: pgs 86-94 Bone from a Dry Sea

• 104-115 Summary
  • Relationship with dolphins:

Li and her tribe's relation with the dolphins change significantly. The dolphins becoming partners in hunting as well as becoming more of a part of the tribe. The dolphins helping the tribe through a hard time, Presh, the leader, being injured and tension running high on the food shortage. The dolphins making the hunting easier by leading shoals of fish toward the tribe, allowing the tribe to catch enough fish to keep them from having empty stomachs for 2 days.

• • Prestige and leadership

For Li's tribe leadership is decided by how high a level of prestige you have, prestige being added by feeding the tribe or winning a challenge fight with courage. Being a leader in the tribe can be a good thing when time are good, accepting prestige, but when times were bad the blame was put on the leader. So when the tribe's leader, Presh, is injured there is an attempted shift of power, Tong and Kerif attempt to lead a journey to the shrimping beach. The journey resulted in failure leaving the group hungry, the blame shifting to Tong and Kerif, as the group arrives back to the cave they find Presh and the rest of the tribe with fish, the prestige falling upon Presh.

"Prestige is like food. It must be frequently given and taken or its effect dwindles away."

• • Beginnings of beliefs

Li began depending on belief during the hard time, her not wanting the tribe to move north without Presh, her uncle and leader, lead her to pray, in a way, for the dolphins to bring another shoal of fish. "She lay in the dark, calling to them in her mind, silent Come heres and Helps." At one point Li makes the connection between the dolphins' songs and their own calls. "... she tried to make them in a way the dolphins could understand, their own calls which she's heard when she danced with them in the water."

- Nyla Jennings Source: 104-115 in BFDS

• 126-132
  • Nature of leadership development

Presh is weak, as his leg is still injured from his fight with Greb. He uses Li to "enhance his own presitge" (p. 128), and the tribe now thinks of a leader as a mentally strong person, not just the alpha male. For example, on page 128 "The nature of leadership had changed. It now depended less upon dominance and more upon consent". This states that the tribe now recognizes the effect of a good leader who can provide them with food and is familiar with the surroundings. Presh, however, is vulnerable to a land fight, in which he will almost certainly be defeated. To make up for this, he is using Li not just because she can use her intuition to help the tribe, but to show that he is in good standing with the one with the most future, the one who will later lead the tribe.

• • Interaction with environment (Boorstein)

For the first time, the tribe begins to interact differently with their environment, instead of being mostly nomadic, they settle in one spot and communicate with dolphins. The dolphins drive the shoal in, where the people would line up and "carefully tighten, body against body, forcing the fish into a packed and threshing mass" (p. 129), where the tribe can collect the fish with their hands and fling them to shore. This is a major step forward for the tribe, as they learn to rely on the dolphins and vice versa, as described on page 129, where a single dolphin comes and cry, and the shark watch would cry the dolphin call. This is an example of Boorstin's "change is unavoidable" theory, and the tribe is adapting.

John Kennedy

Source: Bone from a Dry Sea

• Note: all page numbers from the copy available at the bookstore

• 143-150 Summary

• • Interaction with other hominids

For the first time in the book, we learn about how the tribe interacts with other hominid tribes. When the other tribe of hominids begins to approach, the leader Presh called for all to come over. The grown males moved to the front and put their leader in the center. The males bared their teeth and puffed out their manes. According to Li, if this had happened in the forest, the smaller tribe would have retreated while the larger tribe followed until they felt uncomfortably far from their territory. They would use this as a way to expand territory boarders. However, because this was happening on the beach instead of in the forest, things were different. The smaller tribe, whose leader was recognized as Greb, did not retreat, but instead the males of that tribe attacked.

• • Use of rocks as weapons

While Greb's tribe is attacking, we see the first use of rocks as weapons in this book. Greb hid a rock in his right hand while Presh hit his head. After Presh hit Greb, Greb brought up his left hand and struck Presh's head with the rock, causing him to stumble backwards and fall. It states that he did not rise after his fall. After it is understood that Greb has won, Li watches the other tribe rejoice and notices that each of Greb's followers also held a rock in hand.

Nina Lahoti Source: Bone From a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson

• 158-165 Summary

• • Changes in environment (Darwin)

• 176-182 Summary

First Came a tsunami:

[1]

• • Establishing community: After any traumatic experience, it is imperative that the survivors band together and establish a structure that resembles a community. the first step toward restoring balance in the tribe is when Rawi, a female, finds a large fish almost her size. Because our ancestors are primitive and do not quite feel the broad range of emotions we do, after receiving a gift such as food when they cannot hunt, they are physically and emotionally healed. The next step they take toward establishing community is by unanimously picking Kadif as the new leader. Though Kadif is the leader, their instinct, which says, "whoever can find food, we follow" causes them to follow Li. Li shows the first sign of a non seasonal migration. Her logical idea to head in the direction that was south was a movement not made in a circular path or done before. Thy have established a community again in remarkable time that allows them to find food and provide for each other.

The tribe tries Li's idea to head south. This movement is the first intellectual thought using reason that the tribe has had regarding their survival. Li knew they could find adequate food for a small tribe almost anywhere, however, the tribe needed a sustainable water source. In a manner reminiscent of Elephants trying to find a watering hole, the tribe searches for drinking pools. When the tribe cannot find the drinking pools, this problem forces Li to lead the new tribe to the land she had seen long ago. This movement established a new primary living ground, by the stream. Julian Peavy Source: Bone From a Dry Sea

• 191-194 Summary