Trying to resolve a conundrum raised in Reaper Man concerning the existence of a people very much like Red Indians. In Howondaland. Trying to get them all to fit in, although those wide-open spaces might start getting a little crowded. Still, it seems to be a big place, according to the Mappe, and the Roundworld saying is
Ex Africa, semper aliquid nova. (there's always something new out of Africa)
The Latatian might be (apologies to Clodia) Ex Howondalaandia, semper aliquid nova.
Homage to theclassic western films Little Big Man and A Man Called Horse. Also to George McDonald Fraser for Flashman and the Redskins.
The heart-beat pounding drumming of the Sun Dance continued outside the tepee, muffled slightly by the thick buffalo-skin hides. The sonorous atonal chanting and ululation rose from the dancers, hopefully rising to the ears of the great Manitou, the God whose essence permeated everything in His creation with life.
Pushing it to the back of his mind, the chief sat cross legged, drawing deep on the holy herbs in the peace-pipe, seeking his own communion and guidance from the Great God.
Some say the god manifests as a human with the head of a crocodile, whatever one of those is, with attendant birds who court death by picking his teeth, and who bring him news of what walks and speaks in the world. Others believe the God shows himself as a man with no eyes in his head, but with many eyes which float around him as the stars float in the heavens. A blind God who sees All.
He pulled on the pipe again.
Whatever form He takes, I just wish He would speak to me. Or She. I'm prepared to be flexible.
A particularly loud shuddering groan reached him from one of the participants in the Sun Dance. The chief winced. He knew physical pain, if endured long enough, was a sure-fire way of provoking an ecstatic union with the God and His lesser servants, in which questions might seriously be asked and replies brought back form the Netherworld. This was the reason why his tribe persisted with torture of captives: a courtesy to them, so that they might pass into the next world and the Happy Hunting Grounds in blissful communion with the God. The method worked, alright. The chief just wasn't overly crazy about the means, which was why he was taking a less dramatic, certainly painless, but more problematical route towards mystic communion. All he had to watch out for was that he wasn't misled by Coyote, the trickster God who had to be avoided in an attempt to reach the Great Ones.
He took another long draw. He was almost there, he could feel the waves of heat and power washing over his neck and face, pulsing in waves up from his chest and neck and making his scalp tingle, opening the mystic doorway. Now if he could only fight down this terrible urge to eat, anything and everything, he'd be just fine.
A part of the chief spiraled up into the sky. He could see, far below, his seated form, still and holding the pipe. He passed higher. The tepee dwindled to a dot among many dots. He saw the lands of his peoples, dwindled now from what they had been many thousands of years ago. In the thick jungles to the sunrise, as the Disc turned, he became aware of the Tezuman people, red-skinned like them, those who had raised stone mountains and who had refined the practice of ritual torture down to an over-quick taking of the heart. They were safe in their fastness of jungle and creepers: nothing had threatened them as nothing could reach them. But in between, as the eastern jungle faded to prairie and semi-desert, the black-skinned people who had usurped their old tribal lands and forced Apache and Navaho west and north - turnwise and hubwards, as their compass had it – into the true desert. The chief knew that the black men, calling themselves Kwa'Zulu and Matabele, had in their turn been forced out of former lands by the white men , the tribes of More-Pork and Boor, who had landed in the south (rimwards) of the continent and taken it for their own. So, displaced, they took our land, although we still fight them and take their scalps at the edges, and deter them from taking more. Their Great Chief tried to build a kraal on Apache tribal land. A great error, as the fierce and arrogant ones took pleasure in burning it and killing all its inhabitants. Then the Paramount, enraged, sent an army to slay the Apache. The black soldiers were no match for an invisible enemy, that harried and darted and struck at their flanks and whittled it down, without once being drawn into open battle. Like wasps goading a bear, or red soldier ants fighting black. Few survivors of that impi returned south to the great Kraal of the Paramount.
The inner eye of the chief ascended higher. To the north (hubwise, they call it) of our peoples, another threat. The brown-skinned, bearded and black-eyed peoples, the ones who wrap their heads in white linen wrappings. The tribes of the Klatchian and the Hershebans, they call themselves, from beyond the great northern desert, ever seeking to expand their empire, sending feelers into our prairie and our grasslands. We fight them here too, with the outlawed Klatchian tribe of the D'Regs, those who have said to us with unforked tongue, Our fight is your fight. Your fight is our fight. Let us fight together and enjoy the battle.
The chief smiled. He had no war with the tribe of the D'regs, and the informal alliance had served both sides well. His own people, the Latoka (1) Indians, rode with them to war with the Klatchians, an arrogant people who would enslave them if only they could. Slaves had been taken of his people: the chief had heard that some had escaped and made it to the great white-people-tepee-place called Ankh-More-Pork, which he vaguely knew was immeasurably far away in the snow country to the very far north.
He sighed. And the third and currently most immediate problem was indeed the white people, but the ones in the south, on the other side of the woodland and jungle belt that had hitherto acted as a sanitary cordon. The crazy ones, the ones their faraway home country had sent here to occupy the land, who had forced the black-skinned peoples out, who had then displaced into Indian lands.
Which is all very well, but we have nowhere to displace to if our lands are taken.
And they had expanded their colony outwards into the black peoples' land formerly called Rumbabwe. Which had in turn forced out the bulk of the Matabele people. The chief had nothing against the Matabeles, and most had disappeared into the encircling jungles, but enough was enough. And now the crazy whites, the ones who automatically despised anyone with a skin colour different to theirs, were exploring out of the jungle into the rich veldt - their word for our prairie – to the north. Into our lands.
How much land do these people want!
Even now, an army out of Rhodesia was encroaching on Indian land, seeking to explore, pacify, report back on the suitability of the land for further settlement.
The Chief had called together all the tribes he could find. It ends here, he had decided, and was seeking to convince other chiefs of the need to fight in unity, to overwhelm and turn back the land-hungry colonists. It finishes here. Either for us, or for them. The pow-wow was to be later that night. He was hopeful; the only two tribes who had refused were the eastern desert peoples, the Navaho and the Apache, both unwilling to fight the plainsmen's battle. He had the Sioux confederation, the Kiowa, the Crow, the Blackfeet and the Comanche on side, at least for now. But would that be enough?
He toked again. The pleasurable waves passed over his skin once more .
Great Manitou, send me your sign….
____________________________________-
The Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography stretched out in his bath-tub, giving the bathroom window a long suspicious look. Left to his own devices, he was never going to open the wretched thing as long as he had these rooms. He didn't know which cruel and un-natural part of the geography it was going to open out onto from one minute to the next, and he certainly wasn't going to start experimenting with it. That's what had got his predecessor into trouble: as far as he could tell from the notes that had been left behind, the man had got the idea it could be controlled, and he had been obsessed with being able to open it up to any time and place he chose at will. All it had got him was a short and horrible field trip to the inside of a tyrannosaurus.
And that was the other thing: it opened up not just to any time, but to anywhen. The Professor knew it was a terrible dereliction of his duty to show intellectual curiosity and enrich the total sum of human knowledge, but he couldn't have cared less. He had tenure, in so far as these things are a given at Unseen University. In practice, this meant he got as many meals a day as his body could stand, a roof over his head, and his laundry done for free. He had no obligation to talk to students, despite….. he shook his head, and mentally moved on. And he got the coal. Ye Gods, he got the coal. Seven buckets a day, one for each academic title. This was why he was lying in a cold bath: at present he was trying to burn off a surplus bucketful or two. Oh, Brian usually came discreetly round to pick some up and transfer it into a sack, which then went back with him to his student digs. As far as the Professor was concerned, the more the merrier. If Brian could think of a few other undergrads who might welcome a brief tutorial, say up to five others, they could come along and seek to discuss National Exports of Llamedos, or Economic Redistribution Of Surplus Fuel Resources To Impoverished Undergraduates, at any time. Just leave me one, OK?
And then there were these other twelve academic titles that Ridcully had wished on him. Rincewind suspected the rest of the Faculty had got together to have a clear-out and dump the jobs they didn't want onto him. Well, one day there'd be a faculty member who'd be lower and more despised than Rincewind... and thankfully the signwriter hadn't yet got round to painting the twelve new titles on his door. Otherwise there'd be nineteen buckets of coal outside his door every morning, rather than the current relatively manageable seven...
But so far, given the labyrynthine ways of the University, Brian was the only undergrad who'd worked out the multi-dimensional puzzle of locating his tutor's rooms. The professor wondered if the internal floor plan of the university had been set up deliberately by teaching staff seeking a quiet life.
Anyway, the fire was roaring next door to burn off the surplus coal – not as fiercely as in previous months, as Brian was making inroads on the heap. But hot enough to confine Rincewind to the bath, where he laid, cleaner than he'd ever been and somewhat wrinkled, trying to make sense of his predecessor's working diaries and notes.
Rincewind's memory flashed back over recent unpleasant events.
At every university across the infinite multiverse, a fundamental law of nature applies, which dictates that among the teaching facility there will always arise a star performer. This star performer might write an academic book that perversely becomes a best –seller, even if the subject matter is dry and abstract, for instance to do with the physics of the Big Bang or the atheistic implications of evolutionary theory.
It might be somebody who has, conversely, written a best-selling work of fiction, possibly a thinly disguised account of life set at a thinly fictionalized university where considerable satirical bile is spat upon characters who are thinly fictionalized versions of his colleagues. Such a lecturer might cement his reputation by living an outrageous personal lifestyle and, despite being in his fifties, bedding as many eighteen year old female undergrads as he can. He might also blackmail his bosses with threats of leaving to allow him to draw a full-time salary for part-time work, while working the paid lecture circuit, and also porking another full-time wage for working part-time at a prestigious American university. Leading to jokes like "Why is M****** B******* like God? Because God is here but everywhere. M****** B******* is everywhere but here."2(2)
It might be somebody whose subject matter is so irresistible that his or her lectures are packed out, regardless of personal charisma or ease of lecture delivery.
It might in rare circumstances be a lecturer who is so good at communicating, that his or her native talent makes their lectures unmissable, even if they teach English Lit and you are doing particle physics.
Professor Rincewind, from shaky beginnings, realized he fell in the third category. Oh, it had all started innocently enough, in the bar of the Mended Drum, where he'd fallen in with a group of students and wondered at how young they were getting these days. A social beer had stretched to a discussion of his recent trip to the Moon,3 (3) and Rincewind saw something wholly new in their faces that he'd never seen before.
They were in awe of him.
Normally the expression on any face contemplating Rincewind might convey disgust, or contempt, or a desire to cause physical pain. Rincewind was used to this. He'd never encountered respect before. It was wholly new to him. Savouring this new sensation over a few beers, his tongue loosened and very soon he was holding forth on how egregious, cruel and unusual the Disc's geography could be.
And they loved it.
The Drum effectively became the University's latest lecture room, with the added advantage of available beer and bar snacks. When Rincewind dropped by for a beer, word spread, and he found he didn't have to buy his own beer. In fact, he began to keep a regular schedule, so as to make it easier for students to attend. Then he started planning ahead for his next lecture. He even started to prepare notes.
Rincewind had in fact become a popular university tutor, with students of his own.
Which had not gone un-noticed, nor indeed unremarked, by other members of the Faculty. Rincewind had become horribly aware of this when, partway through an impromptu lecture, to a packed bar, on his travels in Krull and the Circumfence, he was horrified to see Arch-Chancellor Ridcully, the Dean, the Senior Wrangler and Ponder Stibbons occupying discreet seats and quietly listening. With intent.
He swallowed, heavily, and decided that since he was in Modo's finest compost, he might as well go down with a flourish, and continued regardless, even permitting a few questions at the end.
"And when you're in trouble," he concluded, "never hesitate to run. That way you get to see a bit more geography at some speed, and there's usually a friendly bit where you can hide until the trouble's passed you by and you can safely come out again. Thank you, and goodbye!"
He was just about to put his words into practice when he turned and saw the three Bledlows, who all raised pints to him and smiled amicably.
Ridcully stood and addressed the class.
"Thank you to Professor Rincewind there for a fascinatin' and instructive discourse on Applied Egregious Geography, and I even see some of you bothered enough to read up on the subject and get books out of the Library! That's two bloody rare things in this University, the first one bein' that this was a lecture with standin' room only! Now if you people will excuse us, we're goin' to hold a faculty meetin'. I'm sure you've got other classes to attend or essays to write?"
The hint was taken, and the bar swiftly emptied. Ridcully sent Stibbons to get a round in.
"I don't believe it. He gets more students to his lectures than me, Runes and the Wrangler put together!" the Dean petulantly complained, pure jealousy condensing in his words.
"Yes, Dean. But I believe the reason for that is down to you, Runes and the Wrangler all takin' very great care to avoid the students and to give no lectures at all!" remarked Ridcully. "You can't fault this fella for tryin', and some of us have got to teach the buggers! Patrician said so, in as many words, after that damn' inspection!"
It had begun to dawn on Rincewind that he might just be in a different sort of trouble to the one he anticipated. One that involved work.
"After all, Stibbons here puts in a lot of face-time with students down the HEM and has a lot to do with the degree in Applied Thaumaturgy. I'm wonderin', since Rincewind seems to have acquired interested students, despite bein' told his appointment is a honorific with no teachin' responsibilities, whether we can't take advantage of it. Vetinari's damn inspector (3a) said we should improve our ratio for student-teacher contact, and I've just seen a single faculty member hold the attention of eighty students for an hour. That's got to be good for the numbers!"
Ridcully smiled, benignly.
"Professor Rincewind, you are talkin' yourself into teachin' a degree in Cruel and Unusual Geography! Well done, that man!"
Rincewind smiled, weakly.
"Is any, you know, actual pay involved here?" he asked, more in hope than optimism.
"Now don't go gallopin' ahead of yourself here!" Ridcully admonished him. "Deliver the teachin', and there may be a modest stipend in it for you. Nothin' extravagant, mind."
"Hmmmph!" the Dean fumed, nose still out of joint. "Damned flashy young trendy lecturers, I don't know.."
"The real money's in writing books." the Senior Wrangler explained, cheerfully.
"You're also Professor of Fretwork, aren't you, Rincewind?"
"And five other titles, yes."
"Good. Got you a pupil. You've seen the woodworkin' shop, haven't you?"
This was how Rincewind came to meet Brian. (4) Having been forced by Ridcully to lead a class in fretwork, Rincewind survived by frankly explaining that he knew as little as his pupil, so they might as well get the books out of the library and muddle through it together. Brian, an easy-going youth in whom Rincewind recognized something of a kindred spirit, agreed immediately, and three times a week they met up in the University's woodworking shop to butcher innocent pieces of boxwood together.
After a few weeks, they suspected they were starting to get proficient at it. Rincewind shrugged, and reached for another sheet of boxwood….
"YOUCH!" he let go of the wood and sucked his fingers.
"What happened?" Brian asked.
"I could have sworn that bloody wood bit me!"
"Probably a splinter. Let me try… AAARGH!"
Rincewind looked at the sheet of wood with great suspicion. It reminded him of…. Surely not? The colour was right. The grain was suspiciously familiar. The wood radiated deep-seated irritation at the world…
"It's bloody sapient pearwood!" he said. "No wonder it bit!"
Rincewind donned thick leather gauntlets. He felt uncharacteristically pugnacious. Several years of love-hate relationship with the Luggage coalesced into a desire to do harm to the wood it was made of, on general principles.
"Just let me get this under the router. Cut the bugger into manageable pieces…"
He wrestled the wood sheet, which fought him all the way, to the vertical fretsaw. Seeking to cut it into two pieces, he forced it towards the whirring saw blade. Two things happened. The blade shattered into shrapnel, forcing Brian to duck hurriedly. There was an octarine flash. And Rincewind was gone.
___________________________________________-
The tepee flap pulled back The sounds of the Sun Dance outside grew unpleasantly louder. The Chief stirred, and ordered
"Shut that bloody door, will you?"
"OK, Bullshitter!" said the voice. The chief winced.
"Look, how many times? Just Bull, Ok? Nothing else, just Bull!"
Thee was a reversed intake of breath, a backwards-whistle-through-the-teeth noise.
"Tricky things, names." said the newcomer. "You can't mess around with them. They've got to be just so, exactly as delivered at the moment of birth!"
The Chief glared at his medicine man, Dancing Weasel. He suspected the man was enjoying this. Not for the first time, he cursed the literal-mindedness of his tribe, and reflected that had he been born a few minutes earlier, his mother would have looked out of the tepee and named him Squatting Bull. Not ideal, but it would have been better than the name he'd got. And he was stuck with it. The only legitimate way he could change it was to win a major battle or perform a deed of great heroism. And even then he suspected they'd still use the old name, in a low snickering voice.
"What have you got for me, Weasel?" he asked. The medicine man adjusted his buffalo-skull head-dress.
"First visions coming in from the lads on the Sun Dance, guv'nor. There's a message talking in the air…"
"It's from Crazy Horse?"
"His spirit been riding everywhere, guv!"
"A warning?"
Only a whacked-out crazy like Horse would endure the agony of being skewered through his chest muscles by spikes attached to the Sun Pole by long ropes. And then dance himself into a frenzy. For three long agonizing days.
"He says the white man is approaching in two columns. One of horse soldiers, one of men on foot. They're looking for us but can't find anyone. There's bad medicine between the chief in charge of the horse soldiers and the chief in charge of the foot soldiers. The Great God told him we can win the battle, but we need the white medicine man first. Him heap big unlucky, brings trouble."
"A white medicine man?"
"That's what the manitous whisper of. The Great God will send him. Through the living wood."
Bull sighed. This was the problem with the sun dance. You inflict agonizing pain on yourself, bleed a lot, drink little, and stagger round with exhaustion for three days. Of course you'll get a vision.
"Then he started mumbling about giant purple spiders and loosely in the sky with diamonds. I reckon that's all the useful vision we'll get out of Horse this Sun Dance."
"Cut him down, then. He's suffered enough. How far away is this white man's army, anyway?"
"About a week, according to Horse."
"Send scouts out."
"Will do, Bullshitter"
"And it's Bull, right?" the chief roared at the closing tepee flap.
____________________________________-
Rincewind found himself looking up at a blue sky filtered through long luminous green grass. He felt strangely tired and disorientated and just wanted to lie there. It looked like a beautiful summer afternoon, as far as he could tell through the green. No hurry. But this isn't the woodwork craft shop. Evidently another bloody magical accident. With that bloody sapient pearwood. Ah well, the Luggage is bound to catch up…Rincewind considered standing up. He'd need to assess exactly how cruel and unnatural this bit of geography was. Especially with regard to water and food. But there was no hurry.
In the deep grass, a dog-like creature moved. It was aware of Rincewind. It sniggered to itself, anticipating amusement.
_____________________________________________-
The Luggage stirred and awoke. It hopped down purposely from the top of the wardrobe, and stomped out into the corridor, homing in on a signal that its unspecified senses were receiving. It had been called. It would follow. As always, its passing spread a certain amount of consternation to the workings of the University. Wizards, who had faced evil multi-tentacled monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions without flinching, blanched and got out of the way. Housemaids pushing trollies laden with fresh linen and bedding backed up promptly to allow it to pass. Sensing something amiss, Mustrum Ridcully fell in behind it, bellowing for Faculty members to join him at his earliest convenience.
Trailing senior wizards, the Luggage made its way to the woodwork room. It stormed in, and there was a brief flurry of activity. Eventually, when the noise stopped, Brian poked his head up from behind a sturdy workbench. He registered several senior wizards just as cautiously poking their heads around the doorframe. Meanwhile, the ply sheet of sapient pearwood, about six feet by four, had retreated as far as it could get into a corner, with a very angry Luggage confronting it, and occasionally butting it for emphasis.
"OK, lad." Ridcully said to Brian, "Explain what's been happenin' here. Where's Rincewind, for one thing?"
Brian explained. Ridcully frowned, then inspected the wood sheet in the corner, which now radiated frightened submission in the face of an alpha Luggage.
"Sapient pearwood. And he was tryin' to saw it?" He shook his head in disbelief. "That wood defends itself. In a magical environment like the University it has a lot of natural background magic to draw on. Sounds like it protected itself by chuckin' Rincewind into a different time and place."
He paused.
"Stibbons, fire up your thinking engine, would you?"
______________________-
Rincewind moved, he hoped carefully, through the tall grass. His coward's senses were telling him, urgently, that there were other people nearby and, given his usual luck in these matters, should be presumed hostile. He was blissfully unaware, as yet, that to an outside observer, he was leaving a wake of rippling grass like the stern-wave of a ship. As well as that, the tall Wizzard's Hat, moving in a seemingly self-propelled way above the prairie grass, was a dead giveaway to watching eyes. Rincewind, busy sorting out his priorities (Where am I? What's the least eventful way back to Ankh-Morpork – it doesn't have to be the fastest, just the least eventful? Is this bloody grass ever going to end, so I can see where I'm going?), did not at first notice the pony riders, silently converging on the pointy hat moving in the grass, like the fin of a large fish moves in the water. He was following a slight incline downwards, working on a half-remembered piece of geography, that you move downhill to find water. And it was shaping up to be a hot day…
The grass rustled around Rincewind . He looked up and his bowels quivered. The man on the pony was a sort of coppery-red colour, with greasy black hair held back by a headband with a single feather in it. Bare from the waist up, his body and face were painted with varicolour lines and streaks, his legs in crudely sewn and fringed leather britches. But what Rincewind noticed most of all was the lance, a home-made sort of affair mounting a crudely cast metal point. The point, of course, being the point, which Rincewind estimated was as capable of making a hole in him as any impersonally mass-produced civilized weapon. He looked to his left. Yup. Another muscular and tough-looking copper-skinned rider, also with a lovingly home-made lance, this time with a depressingly sharp flint point bound securely on with rawhide.
Both riders rode expertly around him, flattening down the long grass, until they flanked him on either side. They ululated a high-pitched whooping war cry, then fixed Rincewind with a steady and unfriendly gaze.
Rincewind pointed to himself, and said "Friend?" in a hopeful voice.
(Is this the heap big unlucky, brings trouble, white medicine man Crazy Horse told the Bullshitter to expect?}asked the first warrior.
{Heap unlucky for him. Whiteskins not popular in our camp right now. If he isn't, the Ladies Sewing Circle get him} replied the second warrior. The first warrior shrugged.
{Where did those two idiots get to, anyway?}
There was a sound as of somebody not used to riding falling off a pony. A nearby voice said "Oh, shit…"
{They're here now, by the sound of it}
Two more copper-skinned Indians joined the party. They both wore plain headbands without feathers, in one case slightly askew and threatening to obscure the vision from his right eye. Rincewind studied them. If the first two were in the absolute peak of physical health, with gleamingly oiled muscles and perfect white teeth, what could be said about the newcomers… also bare above the waist and warpainted, after a fashion, they looked underweight, skinny, somewhat seedy, and the teeth were somewhat less than white. In fact, a familiar sort of yellow. And instead of home-sewn buckskins, they were wearing… civilized trousers. And hadn't one of them just sworn in good homespun Morporkian when he fell off a horse he was unfamiliar with?
Rincewind had only a few seconds to consider if this conferred an advantage, when the two original warriors, the ones who seemed to know their business, leapt from the saddle and grabbed him, roughly. He didn't struggle. In his way he was an expert in a specialized sort of fieldcraft: the moment to escape was not now. So why waste your energy fighting? When it was time, he'd know.
Rincewind found his hands and legs trussed to a long pole. Around him, a discussion was going on. The two warriors who knew their business were giving instructions to the two who didn't. Rincewind felt himself being lifted in the air, pole and all, and slung fore-and-aft between two horses, which were being walked by the two obviously trainee warriors.
From underneath, Rincewind asked
"One of you speaks Morporkian? Can you tell me where I am, please?"
"You don't know, friend?" said the one with the askew headband.
"No. Just got here. Magical accident at the University"
"So you are a wizard. Even if you spell it wrong. Only one "Z", friend".
The accent was Morporkian, But the body speaking it was as bizarrely strange as any he'd seen.
"Might save your life when the Bull sees you, friend. You'd better hope so. White men ain't popular round these parts right now."
"Er… what are the alternatives?" Rincewind inquired, politely.
"Well, you might be asked to take your partner in the Sun Dance" the Morporkian Indian said, reflectively.
"Doesn't sound too bad."
Rincewind's new friend, or at least not-enemy, sniggered. "You think so? The alternative is being sent to assist the ladies in the Sewing Circle."
"What, embroidery, samplers, dantellieuse, sort of thing. Still doesn't sound too bad."
The Morporkian speaker sighed. "You'll see for yourself back at the camp, I suppose. The name's One-Man-Bucket, by the way. That's my twin brother."
He indicated a sullen, unspeaking type who looked as if he were working out some great inner anger.
" Best you just call him Two-Dogs."
There was an uneasy pause. One-Man-Bucket filled it.
"Look, we're Latoka Sioux. White men call us Redskins. Can't think why. My parents, they made it to Ankh-Morpork. Dad worked in construction. Head for heights, you see. Born steeplejack. Our Mum got a job down the Palace. She worked this con, see, pretending to be an Indian Princess , and the Patrician fell for it. Nice little earner. We was both born there. Immigant family, right? Talked Latoka in the home. Morporkian in the street. Anyway, Latokas have this really literal thing about naming a baby. Mum has to look out of the tepee at the moment of birth, or in her case out through the bedroom window overlooking Old Cobblers, and name the child after the first thing she sees. You with me?"
"So far, yes" said Rincewind, carefully. He noticed the other Indian, Two-Dogs, had stiffened and was clenching his teeth.
"So I'm One-Man-Throwing-A-Bucket-Of-Water-Over-Two-Dogs. One-Man-Bucket, for short. My brother? Best call him just Two Dogs. Really best just call him Two-Dogs."
Rincewind looked blank.
"He was born a minute or so before me, y'see. But the guy to really feel sorry for is the Chief of this tribe. His mother stuck her head out of the tepee and saw…Bull-Twitching-Its-Tail-To-One-Side-And-Making-Dung. Shitting Bull, for short. Everyone calls him Bullshitter, or just Bull."
"Very unfortunate" said Rincewind. "But what brought you back here?"
One-Man-Bucket sighed and his shoulders slumped.
"All we wanted to do was meet family, see our heritage, maybe have a Vision Quest, right, then go back to a place with civilized bars and boozers. Gods, I miss the Mended Drum!"
"Never seen you in there?" Rincewind questioned.
"Nor I you. Odd, that. Anyway. We take ship, work our passage, drop off on the coast, come inland, meet the tribe and the family. It only bleedin' well turns out there's a war on, with white men invading the tribal lands, all hands capable of holding a tomahawk are needed in the warband, yes you can conscientiously object, we're sure we can find a job for you, let's see, there's a Sun Dance scheduled for next Thursday, you're dancing…"
Rincewind was furiously thinking. Windle Poons. What was said about the old fart? He turned zombie. Met Mrs Cake. She's still around. Of course, that's where I've heard the name before. One-Man-Bucket is hr spirit guide, But to be spirit guide, don't you need to be dead? Kind of essential entry qualification, really…
"Mr Bucket. Assume I'm thick and I've lost my wits. What year was it when you left Ankh-Morpork to come out here?"
"1903, friend!"
Rincewind slumped against his binding. That dratted bloody sapient pearwood hadn't just sent him to the middle of flaming Howondaland. It had also moved him the best part of a hundred years back in time. And what happened in 1903 in Howondaland? Think, Rincewind. This means you can sit out the dancing and get excused sewing, if you play it right……
The dog-like creature sniggered again. It sounded like a hyena's laugh. Nervously, the group of Indians looked anxiously at each other, and pressed on a little faster with their captive.
(1) The Latoka: a name conferred by other Howondaland Plains Indians, meaning They who smoke much of the holy herbs.
(2) This author attended the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and at various times was taught by creative writing genius and flawed human being Professor Malcolm Bradbury. As well as Lorna and Vic Sage and Bradbury's sworn enemy David Lodge.
(3) See The Last Hero.
(3a) The Government Inspector who inspected the University at Vetinari's behest was, in fact. A.E. Pessimal. This is alluded to in the opening chapters of Thud!, and is dealt with at greater length in Terry Pratchett's short story, The Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices. (available via the Terry Pratchett L-Space Web)
(4) Brian appears as a character in A Hat Full of Sky as the Dibbler-inclined Dwarf Zikzak's sales assistant, selling dubious magical tat to gullible adolescent witches. He reveals to Tiffany Aching that he studied fretwork at Unseen University. And guess what – one of Rincewind's grab-bag of academic titles is Professor of Fretwork.
For those who asked, this story can be placed just after Science of Discworld II and just before Thud! . It is perhaps a year or so before the events related in A Hat Full Of Sky. (Brian has to graduate and get a job in Lancre selling tat to witches)