Year 7 Day 295
I think I’ve found another relative of the People, though not nearly as R’il’nian-like as they are. This one is much more massive, and while it can rise and travel on two feet when it needs to carry something, it more often travels on feet and knuckles. It apparently lacks the ability of the People to form bonds with other species, and while a certain amount of communication among individuals certainly takes place, it is not nearly as good a communicator as are the People.
It certainly does not have anything like the People’s delight in adornment, nor does it appear to decorate itself.
Unlike the People, who seem to prefer savannah and forest edge habitats, these gorillas, as I am calling them, live in dense forest and even swamps. Neither Torch Flower nor Rhino seem to know what they are, but that may be because of their youth. I will ask the shamans when the People return.
Meanwhile, they are clearly not the same as the chimpanzees I found earlier. Not only are they much larger, but the gorillas are much more vegetarian than the chimpanzees, who hunt the smaller monkeys. It would be fascinating to uncover their evolutionary history, but it is clear that the People have evolved here, and are not some lost branch of the R’il’nai. Yet in many ways they are so much like us ….
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