Blood of Other Days

In the by-gone days of the other life  Before the advent of the WORD  Spilling the blood of foes  Was the honour-code 

- Temsula Ao

Head-takers became acclaimed  Tribal heroes, earning the merit  To wear special clothes and ornaments  And live in grand houses. 

We believed that our gods lived  In the various forms of nature  Whom we worshipped  With unquestioning faith. 

Then came a tribe of strangers  Into our primordial territories   Armed with only a Book and  Promises of a land called Heaven. 

Declaring that our Trees and Mountains  Rocks and Rivers were no Gods  And that our songs and stories  Nothing but tedious primitive nonsense. 

We listened in confusion  To the new stories and too soon  Allowed our knowledge of other days  To be trivialised into taboo.