"We don't need the knowing, we can live here."
―The Tell
The Tell is a social group ritual practised amongst The Lost Tribe in Crack in the Earth. Max witnesses it during the events of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
Format[]
Savannah Nix initiates The Tell
The Tell derives inspiration from tribal story-circles and, like traditional myth, provides the tribe with a tale of their origins. Slake and Savannah Nix, the two tribal elders, deliver the story. It is initiated by striking a gong, which gathers all tribal members to the Tell wall, which is a large mural depicting the events believed to have transpired by the Tribe (similar to hunter-gatherer cave paintings or Egyptian hieroglyphics). A rectangular device made of bamboo and feathers (bearing a striking resemblance to a television screen) is used by the Teller to "frame" the mural wall's events.
The Tell is group activity, and as the storyteller speaks, the other members also partake in The Tell. Tribesmen repeat certain phrases through whispers, and loudly chant others. They also recite in a monotone manner (similar to Catholic Latin mass) the inscription that Walker left them.
The story starts with the Pox-eclipse, and is followed by pilot Captain Walker's heroic struggle to save a group in a plane. The plane crashes, and the survivors end up in planet Earth, where they settle, turning their back on hoarded knowledge, or "the knowing". That being said, the story then informs of how the tribe supposedly made pictures of the things they lost, so they wouldn't forget. The Teller's assistant then uses a salvaged stereoscopic slide-viewer and a lit torch to display the pictures. The slides include: "Tomorrow-Morrow Land" (nondescript city), "The River of Light" (a night road taken with long exposure), "Skyraft" (plane), "Captain Walker" (nondescript pilot), and finally "Mrs. Walker" (a showgirl). The Tell then references The Great Leaving, where Captain Walker and 20 other able-bodied people went searching for help stating that one would return to them once they had found it. It should also be noted the Tribe have a personified concept of malevolence called "Mr. Death/Dead" who cheats people out of life.