Moon asked the People why they were so careful to go painted. Tukanu said, “It protects me from the heat and Insect People.” And Pindi said, “I wear it so that I may know Pindi in the river’s face.” But Aeore said passionately, “We are naked and have nothing! Therefore we must decorate ourselves, for if we did not, how are we to be told from animals?” There it was. The unbearable thing was not the fear that the Great Spirit had forsaken man, nor even that in granting awareness of death, He had made man’s hope ridiculous, but that from the beginning He had made no real distinction between the
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