Time Beyond Beginning (First Americans Saga)

Sarabande has set this dark, tragic tale of struggle and survival on the northeast coast of North America during the final days of the last ice age. To the paleo-Indian people of the day, the pace and magnitude of climactic change must have seemed powerful and frightening. Mammoths and mastodons remained but were obviously so well on the path to extinction that they had been elevated to enormous symbolic religious importance. Even for elders, wise shamans and the most accomplished hunters, knowledge such as migratory routes of critical food and resource supplies like caribou, beluga and geese must have seemed fleeting and frustratingly inconsistent. Cree and Inuit people from the Arctic and the unforgiving barrens of northern Quebec and Labrador, the beginnings of the Ojibway, Algonquin and Iroquois nations that found themselves more at home in the woodlands of southern Ontario and Quebec or upstate Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, plus the eastern maritime ancestors of the Micmac tribe meet, intermingle, mate and breed, battle for territorial and cultural supremacy, trade, pray and make offerings to their gods, kill or help one another, and live and die. Sarabande fills in her panoramic, complex canvas with all the attention of the most assiduous realism painter. Tiny, single brush strokes are made with the greatest of care and no detail is too small to be included in her exquisite portrayal of this pre-historic North American landscape - the slate gray colour of the sky during a powerful late winter storm; the sickly, smell of rotting meat on the hoof as a dying mammoth searches for a final resting place; the rich, sweet colour and taste of sap rising in spring maples; the incredible development of the bow and arrow as a weapon capable of striking from a distance, terrifying hunters who know only the lesser power of a stone-tipped spear; the first hesitant use of metallic copper in weaponry, commerce and art; tattoos, jewellery and all the finery of aboriginal costumes. In the foreground of this stunning canvas, she paints the portrait of M'alsum - a venal, self-important, cowardly, almost psychopathic headman. M'alsum abandons his youngest brother, Ne'gauni, trapped in a deadfall, dying of wounds sustained in an attack by a tribe of northern hunters foraging far out of their regular territory in the barrens. In the same raid, his mate, Hasu'u, is kidnapped and forced to serve as wet nurse to a motherless infant. M'aslum, adds self-pity, self-doubt and avarice to his list of failings and murders his two other brothers whom he sees as competitors to his position as chief. Sarabande's description of a woodland tribesman's courageous stand against the charging mammoth and M'alsum's cowardly flight from the same beast ultimately leading it by chance over a steep embankment to its death was absolutely breathtaking. The development of the characters of the Old One and her grand-daughter, Mowea'qua, as members of a very hairy, bone-deep ugly race

This book was added to my collection of W. Sarabande books. I can't wait until the next book hits the stores.

This book was a great book. It told the story of prehistoric American Indians wonderfully. All though the story line was well after the events of the rest of the series, it was rivoting. I couldn't put it down! Unlike some reviewers, I felt that Sarabande did a great job with portraying how women were treated in Prehistoric times. These books were written from extensive research and I think that William Sarabande did and excellent job! Kudos to you!

As with all of the First American books I have really enjoyed this one. I was a little disappointed at first hoping to continue in the lives of the people from the second five books, as I was also disappointed when I didn't find the first people in the second set of the series. But what I want to know is were is the rest of the series. I am ready to read them now. And by the way, the story synopsis that is on here is not the story that I read. Get it together people.

The summary of the story line is not correct. This is a very well-written book and is well worth reading. I've read all of "Sarabanade's" series of books and this one was no disappointment to me. I really enjoyed it.