A novel about the last of the Neanderthals, told from the Neanderthal perspective.

Now that's what I call a truly heroic leap of imagination.

Pagans will most likely know novelist William (Lord of the Flies) Golding (1911-1993) as name-giver to the Gaia Hypothesis—he and scientist James Lovelock were long-time friends, next-door neighbors, and drinking buddies—but let me tell you about a novel of his that's a little pagan gem.

In The Inheritors (1955), Golding tells the story of the last, doomed group of Neanderthals in Europe, and their disastrous and deadly encounter with a group of incoming Cro-Magnons.

(Back in the Paganolithic Era, we used to joke about how—our style being strictly mask, drum, and red ocher—if we were Wiccans, our trad must be Cro-Magnon.

(My friend Stephanie Fox once gibed about a scenario in which a big, burly guy approaches at Pagan Spirit Gathering one summer. “Hi, are you guys the Cro-Magnon Wicca people?” “That's us.” “Oh yeah? Well, we're the Neanderthal Wicca.” Wham!)

More: Golding tells their tale, as I said, from the perspective of the Neanderthals themselves.

It is, admittedly, no quick read. Golding's Neanderthal-think takes some deciphering,

Oh, but the pay-off is worth the work.

The story I'll leave to your own reading pleasure, but let me pass along to you one of the novel's shining treasures.

The great power in the Neanderthals' world—their goddess, although they don't call her that, of course—is Oa: Earth. (Their most sacred object of power—although, naturally, that's not how they would speak of it—is the little Oa, a pebble naturally-shaped like a fleshy, naked woman.)

Oa: a musical, primal name. Speak to Earth as Oa, think of her as Oa, and see what she tells you.

To Golding's Neanderthals, Oa is a being with whom they're on personal terms. Sometimes the theological language of gods and goddesses can get in the way, make distance, can unnecessarily complicate something that's really, at heart, very simple. Sometimes it's good to set the language aside and just get on with the relationship. Oa.

 

An old man named Mal dies. The band dig a hole under the place in the rock-shelter—one of their regular camps—where the fire burns. They lay his body there on its side, as if asleep, and strew handfuls of red ocher over him.

Oa be warm for you, Mal, they say.

They put a haunch of meat beside him.

Eat, Mal, when you are hungry, they say.

They pour handfuls of water from a nearby spring over his face.

Drink, Mal, when you are thirsty, they say.

Then they cover the body with earth.

Oa has taken Mal into her belly, they say.

 

Now that's a ritual. For honesty, purity, and sheer beauty, I challenge any modern pagan rite-maker to equal it.

Earth has many names, hers to her. Surely Oa is one of them.

Oa.