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One of the prominent themes of the Eternal Savage is the contrast between human beings at different stages of technological and sociological development. It appears that ERB preferred mankind in a simpler state of being, like many pulp writers of his day, to more advanced socialogical stages where he shows by example that men become lesser beings when their tools and equipment become greater. This is clearly evident in the Eternal Savage by following the rising level of social and technological cultures that were encountered by the hero and heroine of the feral Cliff Dwellers.
First, we must regard the people of Nu. They live in caves; their chief technological development is the making of stone weapons; they are semiarboreal, live by hunting and gathering, are physically robust (very much so). Nu was as large or larger than Tarzan (tm) as was revealed when he was dressed in an old pair of Lord Greystoke's (tm?) clothing. Nu's people possessed fighting fangs (which may or may not have been larger than normal human canines), traveled comfortably in the trees like apes, and were very strong and aggressive. Their constitutions were nearly perfect, needing only time to recover from any wound that didn't kill them, and this is only natural since their medical technology was probably no greater than that of simple first aid. They had few superstitions or religious beliefs. They were a race of powerful men totally integrated with their environment on a physical level, and required only their stone weapons to do well.
Culturally they were a close nit, non-caste society that valued men and women equally. There were a few bad apples, such as Hud who took Nat-ul by force, and Ra-el who lied in a futile attempt to gain Nu as a mate, but as a whole the people were truthful, direct and honorable. Since killing was so much a part of their primitive world as a whole, one might forgive their tendency to kill enemies on sight. While they killed captives, they did so quickly and without torture; in a general sense cruelty was not apparent among them.
They were a race of Tarzans(tm), as representative of the Noble Savage as men can be.
Below them were the Hairy People. Physically simian, yet manlike, these beast-men were banded together in the simplest anthropoid manner and exhibited rudeness, brutality and extreme selfishness. They represented the basest of human evils without any redeeming cultural or technological achievements.
Above the Cliff Dwellers on the scale of technological development were the Boat Builders. These people possessed such things as primitively constructed houses, canoes, pottery, more advanced sewing techniques, and probably a more complicated language use as well. It is worth noting at this time that all the peoples of the Niocene world spoke the same primitive language. Whether this is credible or not, it is one of the main themes of ERB's books. The language started among the primitive primates such as monkeys and apes and rose to use by Stone Age humans. Among the people of Nu this language was beginning to be expanded because of a need to further elaborate and represent human needs and experiences. Nu's people did this by inventing a word or too, but more often they extended the usefulness of their language through signals and gestures using their hands and eyes. One might presume that the Boat Builders extended the Mother Tongue (if it might be called that) even further because of their higher technological advances and the need to name things they worked with. (And the Lake Dwellers even further to express the particulars of their expanded leisure time.)
It is not mentioned greatly if the Boat Builders had more of a religion than the Cliff Dwellers, but that may be inferred from their cruel practice of burning prisoners to death. Torturing prisoners was a pleasure to some primitive cultures because it showed either how weak their enemies where if they howled and cried from the pain or how strong they were if they died stoically, as Nu was determined to do. Or it may be some sort of sacrifice to something higher than themselves, either consciously or unconsciously. That is speculation, however.
An important thing to note is that as human beings gain greater technological efficiency, the strength of their bodies and moral character goes down. They become more cruel and petty. This is a major theme in the Eternal Savage. The Boat Builders were a little weaker, not as courageous or equal in fighting capacity to the feral Cliff Dwellers. Had the Boat Builders possessed the bow and arrow they might have prevailed against Nu's people. Hand to hand, with similar weaponry, the Cliff Dwellers easily conquered the Boat Builders when the tribe of Nu came looking for its lost son.
The last of the societies, and the most advanced, was the Lake Dwellers. The Boat People were still largely hunters, though they hunted far less dangerous beasts than Nu's people. The Lake Dwellers were herdsmen. They lived in the security of a town separated from the killers of their primeval jungle. They had two things that the other cultures didn't have: security and a dependable food supply. Unfortunately, with these two things came more moral and physical decay. They needed only one guard at the fire that burned near the single entrance to their floating town, and he was a sluggish fool. One guard even made love to a woman while on duty. Personal indolence and petty selfish concerns are clearly illustrated. Their senses are partially tuned to the social and individually idiosyncratic illusions generated by their "town" life. They were concerned with social affairs, personal pleasures and dull daily work. In contrast, Nu's senses were tuned to staying alive in a very challenging, dangerous environment. Nu disdained the drudgery of daily work. He preferred to live clean and free in the wilderness, than work like a slave for false security and comfort.
When Nu crept upon the dwelling of the Lake People, he smelled their roasting food and was hungry. Yet, what was important to him, then and before, was the acquisition of weapons. His people were a forceful, vigorous fighting people, kept honed by daily encounters with creatures larger and more ferocious than their counterparts found in modern times. It is interesting that what destroyed Nu's people was a combination of their Hunter's Honor and catastrophic natural forces. Had Nu's people abandoned him and kept going to a safer land, they would not have been destroyed by the moving of the earth and the rushing in of the Restless Sea. At least a portion of the tribe survived as they waited further north for the rescue party to return.
The Eternal Savage combined the majesty of the feral man with the love and honor of medieval knighthood. It illustrated the author's concept of society's degenerating effect on the mind and bodies of men. But above all it was a magnificent love story centering on a search for love that spanned the ages and knew no bounds.
copyright by Rod Hunsicker 11-2-1997
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