Chapter 124 – The Cubs in the Tribe (1/2)

Translated by Sunyancai

During the hunting time, Mao saw those creatures with four fangs, and considered them as animals similar to wild boars and ferocious beasts.

Having seen several wild boars with four fangs, he finally caught a cub and brought it back to the tribe, only to be told that it was not a wild boar but a regular animal. With four fangs, this kind of beast looked like a wild boar, but didn’t have the thick fur or looked aggressive.

Mao originally thought it was a cub of the ferocious beast but it turned out to be just a regular beast.

Though Mao was disappointed after knowing this, he did not kill the cub and eat it, but kept it. He even deliberately went down from the mountain to ask Shao Xuan for advice on how to raise it.

Many people secretly laughed at Mao, because as the grandson of the chief, and the son of a team leader, he raised such a creature, while the other people raised wolves or leopards.

Mao named it “Si Ya” (literally four fangs), which looked like a babirusa. That was probably because he failed to find a ferocious beast with four fangs. Fortunately, the cub was a male which would have four fangs after growing up, so he temporarily kept it.

In the beginning, many people asked Shao Xuan for advice, but gradually, less and less people did so. After some hunting activities, less than one tenth of those asking for advice in the beginning would come to discuss the feeding experience with Shao Xuan, and the rest killed the cubs in the process to eat.

That was because it was the first time for the people in the tribe raising cubs. They handled some situations improperly, and sometimes were unable to control their strength. Some of them were impatient, or adopted the wrong way.

Of course, not all of the cubs were suitable to be trained as hunting animals, even if they were generally an aggressive specie, some had physical defects, or were timid in nature. Some even had other quirks. Even after training, they might not qualify.

Despite the great difficulty, a part of the people in the tribe still persisted in raising cubs while less and less people did so.

One day, the Shaman, after a walk in the tribe, asked Shao Xuan for a talk.

The Shaman could not stand it. He thought that it was a mess, raising cubs in the tribe, and the potential risk behind this was too great. He wanted to get qualified hunting animals with strength and loyalty, instead of those only with the power and the ferocious nature, but would betray in the end.

Training methods determined quality of the trained beasts.

“If you want them to learn what you teach, while training, you must give them your order and gesture before pulling the straw rope. In this way, they would remember the meaning of your order and gesture. If you failed to do so and pulled the straw rope, they would have an impression of the straw rope rather than your order.

Caesar, come here…

Here is an example … Well, just like this…”

More than once, Shao Xuan saw people in the tribe pulling their cubs and shouting their orders at the same. However, it was a pity that the training was not effective.

“I will tell you a few ways to train your cubs. The first one is mechanical stimulation. That is to say, with certain means, you force them to do what you request. For example, if you want it to to lie down in the grass, in order to not let it get up, you can press it by hand. Through this way, you can make it lie in the grass. After receiving repeated training, the cubs will form the correct consciousness to take actions according to your order…”

While Shao Xuan was speaking, a young warrior, at the similar age of Shao Xuan, held the cub with his hand and said, “Like this?”

“…you’re just holding it, not pressing it.”

Details like this were all told by Shao Xuan to them.

In addition, Shao Xuan told them the method of food stimulation, the combination of mechanical and incentive training methods, and so on.

For many in the tribe, the most unacceptable method was food stimulation. In their view, the food was so valuable that they were reluctant to eat it themselves, let alone give some to the cubs which would have been eaten by them once caught. Simply unacceptable!

However, there were still some people who were willing to adopt this method, and most of them were young warriors, such as Mo Er and Mao.

In a situation like Shao Xuan at the beginning, Mo Er moved out to live alone and never starved. Many in Mo Er’s family were warriors and he never lacked of food, so it was not a problem for him to give some food to feed the cub.

Sometimes, when explaining the imitation training, Shao Xuan would show them an example with Caesar, and let those cubs stay with Caesar more often.

Several young wolves could follow Caesar’s actions, but it was a bit difficult for Mo Er’s cave lion and Mao’s Si Ya to do so, because the former was rebellious and the latter was simply gluttonous and lazy.

Mo Er’s cave lion was named Liao (literally a hunt), it was totally different from those Shao Xuan had seen before.

Most cave lions lived in caves in mountains alone, not in groups. They often hunted alone, facing against of cave bears and other ferocious large mammals, so their strength was not weak. That was why they were not easy to tame.

Both Mo Er and Mao had to make more effort than others training their cubs. It depended on their patience.

Day by day, the cubs that were being brought back to the tribe became less and less, but the ones that survived were growing up.

After Shao Xuan’s explanations and demonstrations, the young warriors gradually changed their training methods. Now, walking in the tribe, you could often see some of the young warriors keeping their cubs as company while they were chatting with others.