CLASH OF THE CLANS, CONCLUSION (OR IS IT?)

Over the next two years there was much unhappiness and dissension on The Hill. Signs were put up. Signs were torn down. Barriers were constructed. Barriers were crashed through. Even huge boulders were dragged into place, but they were removed as well. Bunches and bunches of wampum were wasted.

Now, in the hierarchy of persuasive-tongued people, those with the most talented tongues are known as Silver Tongues. Those who make their living using their silver tongues are called Attorneys. There seemed to be many of these living on the front of The Hill. The president of the Front-of-the-Hill Clan was one, and as it turned out, so was the person who happened to own the property where all the barriers were being built. In fact, he was the person doing much of the barrier removal. He was most unhappy that no one bothered to consult him before constructing stuff on his property. The Clan had not felt it was necessary, as he was but a Seasonal Traveler, who never attended Powwows, therefore he did not know The Truth. The silver-tongued property owner decided to teach them a lesson. He challenged his own clan and their president to a duel of tongues - also known as a lawsuit.

The worried president and his assistant, Woman-with-Persuasive-Tongue, called an emergency meeting of The Clan, on very short notice. Hippie and Honey could not attend, as their family clan were due to arrive on The Hill that very day. However, they knew they could stay silent no longer. They sent a smoke signal to all members of the clan, saying they felt it was time to abandon this barrier idea completely. The whole idea was wrong from the start, and too much wampum had already been wasted. If galloping horses were truly their only concern, then perhaps a better solution - the weird friendly solution - would have been to simply install some slowing bumps in the road. Woman-with-Tongue sent a reply signal, saying "You know not of which you speak. I guess you are not one of us after all, for you still know not The Truth."

There was a time when that message would have been very upsetting to Hippie and Honey, but much had changed for them. They were no longer members of The Clan of the Drifting Disconnected. In those two years they had built many connections in the Community of Weird Friendly People. The were connected to The Clan of Creative People Who Do and Make. They were connected to Those Who Garden in the Land of Deer and Strange Weather. They were connected to Those Who Are Creating a Local Food System. They were connected to the world at large through The Clan Who Reads and Writes Smoke Signal Stories, and there was one thing they had learned for certain, through all of this reading and writing and connecting. They now knew that it was The Front-of-the-Hill Clan, not them, who did not, and would probably never, know The Truth.