Bait
Makin’ spears, chipping flint knives. Maybe domesticating wolves into dogs.
Ooo murderous henchmen, I hadnt considered that - Shaman ethics are probably a bit different to the APA.
Otara
I am not a henchman, sir. I am an indepedent contractor in the maiming field.
My job is telling people they are doing something wrong without telling them the right way to do it.
Never mind tiger bait, they’d tie me up for sloth bait.
I’m retired so I get to be a tribal elder.
You’ve all got to feed me and listen to my stories.
Or put you on an ice floe.
I’m an economist, so I’d be dead.
I wouldn’t have survived long enough to be bait. Bad eyesight, premature birth, etc… I almost died as it was.
Wrangler of unruly cavechildren (I’m a behavior therapist). Also, I can fingerpaint a mean bison.
Me teach Grok how speak caveman good!
Gene spreader.
I would be a practitioner of the oldest profession…hairdresser! Weaving in bones, shells, flowers, hacking off hunks of hair with a stone blade to make bangs so you can see. Hey, I would invent the braid!
Hunter. And no one has said hunter yet! I’ll be quite important in our tribe, I guess. I would also be something of a storyteller. I could see myself leading hunts by day, and telling tales around the campfire at night.
It honestly sounds much more rewarding than my life in 2011. In some ways I think this is why video games resonate so much with my generation. That direct cause/effect and struggle/objective relationship is so much more prevalent and attainable in video games vs a lot of our daily lives. Our goals are less tangible and much more long term. There’s an allure in plundering tombs for gold to buy a fancy sword or getting enough headshots to earn a medal.
Considering some of my past hobbies, I’d be maker of the firewater with all that useless rotten grain.
I’d catch fish.
Cave painter and clothing maker.
Dude, serious? You’re a lawyer. Possibly sneaky tribal shark.
Sneaky tribal shark in training.
Storyteller/teacher; herbalist; headologist.
That’s based on the kind of training I got (chemistry), the many hours I have spent watching other people’s kids and/or answering difficult questions (“are babies made lying down?” “who was that Hitler guy and why are our parents refusing to tell us?”) and that a big part of my job involves figuring out what makes different people tick.
I’m reasonably sure that I wouldn’t be getting hired by other tribes to improve their processes (I’m a management consultant), but the storyteller and headologist aspects might come in handy to improve ours and therefore our lives (I’m also one of those people who are always thinking “how could this work better?” - I do stay away from Stuff That Ain’t Broken, though).
Ah, so you get to be the Scary Shaman: Doing Fire’n’Brimstone Since Before We Had Matches.
I’d be the third herbalist. I would know where plants grow, their uses, I would gather all the plants the healer needs and pick up some medical lore on the way.
I’d teach eveybody about good bugs and bad bugs and how to tell them apart. I would also love to try and make soap and paint and lye, so I’d be a bit of a chemist.