If we place a representation of the skeleton of a modern Yilanè beside the skeleton of a Tylosaurus the relationship is immediately obvious. The digits of the limbs, hidden by the superficial flesh of the fins, reveal four fingers and four toes. So now we have two fingers on each hand and two opposed thumbs. The tail is our tail, suitably shortened. The resemblance is also clear in the rib cage, a flowing wave of ribs from clavicle to pelvic girdle. Look at these two similar skeletons and you see past and present, side by side. There we are, developed and modified to dwell on land. There is our true history, not some vague statement about appearing from the egg of time. We are the descendants of these noble creatures who some 40 million years ago became the Yilanè.

THE EARLY YEARS

Much of what follows is of necessity guesswork. But it is appropriate guesswork that fits the facts of the fossil records, not airy-fairy flights of fancy such as imaginary giant meteors. The record in the rocks is there to be read. We simply assemble the parts and fit them together, just as you might reassemble the broken pieces of an eggshell.

If you wish to assemble all of the pieces yourself, then consult the relevant geological and paleontological texts. In them you will discover the origin of species, how earlier species are modified to become later ones, you will find revealed the history of the various ice ages, the phenomenon of continental drift, even the record sealed in rock that the magnetic pole was not always to the south, the way it is now, but has varied between north and south through the geological ages. You could do all of this for yourself—or you can be satisfied with our description in abbreviated form.

See then the world as it must have been 40 million years BP when the first simple and happy Yilanè roamed the Earth. It was a wetter and warmer world, with all the food they needed there for the taking. Then, as now, the Yilanè were carnivores, feasting on the flesh of the creatures that filled the land and the sea. The young, then as now, gathered in efenburu in the sea and worked together and ate well. What happened when they emerged on land is not clear in the geological record and we can only guess.

Having learned cooperation in the sea, the Yilanè certainly would not lose it when they emerged from the ocean and walked on solid ground. Then, as now, the males were surely the same simple, kindly creatures and would have needed protection. Then, as now, the beaches would have been guarded while the males were torpid, the eggs growing. Food was plentiful, life was good. Surely this was the true egg of time, not the imaginary one, when life was simple and serene.