Suddenly, the little old lady smiled brightly, her eyes glistening. A slow curl of smoke drifted lazily upward into the room from the incense. "Look here my friends!" Her index finger was pointing at the vase. "See this vase? It is made out of clay. It is used for carrying water. See the stand it sits on? This is to allow air to cool off the water stored in the vase." The Clairvoyant held up a pair of small spectacles to her eyes and squinted slightly, her finger pointing at a little pile of what looked like rocks or stones that had been drawn underneath the vase.
"Now see what is drawn below the vase? It looks like a pile of rocks, but I'm afraid the meaning might have been lost in translation."
"What meaning is that?" Zoe looked at the Clairvoyant curiously.
"Well," the Clairvoyant started to explain.
"When our tribe's healer left ages ago, she spoke of an Egyptian curse of a dark evil that was coming, but I'm afraid she left nothing else behind but this wrinkled, old card to help us." The Clairvoyant placed a small, black card in the middle of her table. She brought a candle closer so everyone could see the card clearly.
"That card doesn't mean we're all going to die does it?" Ruby was starting to get worried.
All four peered closely at the card, but saw only a grim-faced dirty-white skeleton holding two scythes across its chest in the form of an X. There were other markings that looked like flowers or maybe plants, but the rest of the card was black and grimy.
"No, sweet girl. That is not what this card means. This is not about the literal death of any person or people. What this card means is giving up all that is superficial and concentrating on what is basic, fundamental and truly important. It means a changing of the times."
The Clairvoyant tossed more logs on the fire and used a bright ember to light more sage and incense. Her young assistant lit two more candelabras with dark red candles, one on either side of the room. It was getting dark outside and the wind was starting to howl outside.
"But what happened? Weren't they supposed to have used the vases for something?" Hazel looked confused.
"Ah, yes my child." The old woman smiled again and seemed pleased.
"They were supposed to have used their vases for something - for storage. But they might have stored the wrong items."
Looking over the pictures again, the Clairvoyant put them in chronological order. Pointing at the original pictogram, the old woman explained to her guests:
The Prophecy "In the original cave painting, we can see that these vases were used to store water for peoples' crops and animals as well as for drinking, as we do here in my village. There is the sun, a symbol for water, and a pictogram of plants and animals - everyone is healthy. However, the drawing underneath the vase might have been cause for confusion."
"What does the little pile of rocks mean?" Zoe was confused."Why would people put rocks in their water jars?"
"They wouldn't have put rocks in their water jars." the Clairvoyant explained, "but they might have stored something else more valuable - at least more valuable than rocks. It's possible that the original meaning of this cave painting was lost in translation. The Ancient Egyptians used pictures instead of letters and words, and if my memory serves me correctly, the Egyptian hieroglyph for "gold" was drawn in your cave painting, although the drawing merely resembles a small pile of rocks. Perhaps the artist was a sloppy painter. At any rate, it seems the meaning of the picture was the cause for confusion, rather than the image itself.
The Death card my healer left behind indicates a warning or an admonition in advance of the changing times. Perhaps the people needed help, but instead received their own prophecy: the big, black X painted over the original cave drawing that we see in the last picture along with the dead animals."
The Clairvoyant continued:
"The dead animals along with the water symbol and the Black X indicate a prophecy of death, drought and famine. If there was a drought, then peoples' crops and animals would die and there would be famine in the land. Perhaps these people were supposed to regard water as their "gold" or "treasure" and conserve it for future use or for use in times of drought - hence the clay vases for water storage."
The Clairvoyant opened the pages of a small book she pulled from a small bookcase against one wall of her hut.
"Here." She smiled brightly, pointed at the wrinkled, colored pages and began to read:
"Near the cave was a natural spring, and in the past, the native inhabitants dug to uncover the spring for a much needed water supply, for themselves and for the African wildlife. However, the peoples who came along thousands of years later (2000 AD), misinterpreted the cave painting's symbol for "treasure." They decided that the "treasure" symbol in the cave painting meant actual gold, or diamonds or other types of riches that were to be found elsewhere on the African continent, rather than the natural spring that lay directly beneath their feet.
These people went digging someplace else for their gold treasure to store in their vases and did not heed the cave painting message left them by previous generations. They failed to store water (their real treasure) for the future, and their crops withered and animals died as a result. They abandoned the natural spring until forest elephants returned and dug up the spring themselves by sucking up the mineral rich mud."
"Ah," The Clairvoyant smiled in understanding.
The New Era has arrived...
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