Bare stage. In the centre, five or six blazing torches inclined towards each other to form a pyramid with a single head of flame. The theatre is entirely lit by this. Indian music, flutes, drums, chanting. Shadowy forms.
After a time, West appears. As he speaks, Indians enter, one by one, from the wings, through the auditorium. Each takes a torch and returns with it the way he came.
West
Origin of fire.
In the old days men ate raw flesh
And had no knowledge of fire.
Also they had no weapons
And hunted the game with their bare hands.
A boy went hunting one day with his brother-in-law.
They saw a macaw’s nest up perched on a cliff-ledge.
They built a ladder and the boy climbed up to the ledge.
In the nest were two eggs.
The boy took them and threw them down to his brother-in-law
But in the air they turned into jagged stones
Which as he went to catch them cut his hands.
He was very angry.
He thought the boy was trying to kill him.
He took the ladder down broke it and went away.
The boy was on the ledge for many days and nights
Dying slowly of hunger
Eating his own excrement
Until one day the jaguar passed by
And seeing a shadow cast ahead of him on the ground
Looked up and saw the boy.
The jaguar mended the ladder helped the boy down
Took him back to his home and revived him
Feeding him cooked meat.
The jaguar loved the boy and treated him as his son
Calling him the foundling
But the jaguar’s wife was very jealous of him
And when the jaguar was away she never missed a chance
To scratch him or to knock him over.
The boy complained to the jaguar that he was always frightened
So the jaguar gave him a bow and arrow
And taught him how to use them.
The next time the jaguar’s wife attacked him
He shot an arrow at her and killed her.
The boy was terrified by what he had done.
He took his bow and a large piece of cooked meat
And escaped into the jungle.
After many days wandering he reached his own village
And told his people all the things that had happened to him
Showing them the meat and the bow.
The men were very excited by his discoveries
And they set off on an expedition to the jaguar’s home
To steal his weapons
And to steal his fire.
What you take from people
They will never find again.
Now the jaguar has no weapons
Except his hatred for man.
He eats no cooked meat
But swallows the raw flesh of his victims.
And only the reflection and the memory of fire
Silence. The last torch has vanished. Embers. A strange cry in the darkness.
Blackout.