--- title: Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark», a lesson of the books course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Long, long ago, in the Stone Age, a man called Tegumai lives in a Cave --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / Just So Stories, How the First Letter… # Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 1: a broken spear and a picture on birch-bark Lesson 84 of the books course of Mova's primary school: 25 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/0/) — Long, long ago, in the Stone Age, a man called Tegumai lives in a Cave with his wife Teshumai and his little daughter Taffy. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/1/) — Nobody in the family can read or write, and they do not mind. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/3/) — One day they go fishing for carp in the Wagai river, miles from home, and Tegumai breaks his spear on the river bottom. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/4/) — Mending it will take half the day. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/5/) — Taffy wishes they could write, so they could send a message home for Daddy's other spear, the big black-handled one. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/6/) — A Stranger-man from a far tribe comes along. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/7/) — He does not understand a word of their language. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/8/) — Taffy tries to tell him to go and fetch the spear; he hands her a piece of birch-bark to show he means no harm, and she thinks he wants her Mummy's address. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/9/) — Taffy borrows the shark's tooth from his necklace and scratches a picture on the bark: Daddy with the broken spear, the black-handled spear, herself explaining, the Stranger-man holding the spear, two trees, a hill, the beaver-swamp with beavers' heads, the Cave, and Mummy with her hands up. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/10/) — But the Stranger-man reads the picture quite differently. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/11/) — He thinks Tegumai must be a great Chief in danger, with enemies all around, and that the child is asking him to call the whole tribe to help. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/14/) — Teshumai says: «Really, my Tegumai, you're no better than my Taffy.» - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/15/) — Tegumai's spear is wood with shark's teeth at the end; he breaks it «clean across» by jabbing too hard on the river bottom, and he has forgotten to bring extra spears. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/16/) — Taffy offers to run home for the other spear, but Tegumai says it is too far, and she might fall into the beaver-swamp on the way. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/17/) — «Here's a pretty kettle of fish!» means here's a nice mess; «make the best of a bad job» means do what you can when things go wrong. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/18/) — His «mendy-bag» holds reindeer-sinews (tough strings from an animal's body), strips of leather, bee's-wax and resin (sticky tree-gum). - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/21/) — The Stranger-man believes his shark's tooth is magic and that anyone who touches it without leave will «swell up or burst»; when Taffy does not, he decides she is a very wonderful child. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/22/) — Because Tegumai never turns round, the Stranger-man thinks he must be a haughty, great Chief, «Man-who-turns-his-back-on-callers». - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/23/) — Taffy draws lying flat on her tummy with her legs in the air. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/24/) — She draws only the beavers' heads, because she says she can't draw beavers, and she draws Mummy with her hands up because Mummy will be so pleased to see the Stranger-man. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/25/) — In the picture the black-handled spear «looks as if it was sticking in Daddy's back», because the tooth slipped and the bark was too small. - [26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/26/) — Real life: people did not write in the Stone Age. - [27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/27/) — Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago, first in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Egypt, and later, separately, in China and in Central America. - [28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/28/) — Real life: pictures are much older than writing. - [29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/84-justso-first-letter-1-a-broken-spear/29/) — People painted animals in caves tens of thousands of years ago, but a picture is not yet writing: it does not tell you the exact words, so it can be read in different ways, just as here. - ← previous: [Just So Stories, The Beginning of the Armadillos, part 2: swimming lessons, curling lessons, and a new name](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/83-justso-armadillos-2-the-first-armadillo/) - next →: [Just So Stories, How the First Letter Was Written, part 2: the picture goes wrong and the whole Tribe comes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/85-justso-first-letter-2-the-whole-tribe-comes/) - ↑ back to [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/)