On an isolated island in the Pacific, a huge mountain range separates two different "tribes".  In these same mountains live the last nine dragons in the world, and when they are threatened by a war between the Wongsu and the Makai people, the dragons revive to maintain the peace.  By their good efforts they achieve not only peace in their declining years but also immortality in Chinese art.

This prize-winning play had its premiere in 1978 by the noted Honolulu Theatre for Youth and was originally published in Dramatics Magazine.

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Due to a drought and failed crops the people of Wongsu are starving.  Grandfather Elder, from the village, sends a hunter into the mountains to find game animals that have moved higher in search of food themselves.  When the hunter returns he reports seeing something strange.

THE HUNTER

Grandfather Elder, I have seen it with my own eyes.  Beyond the mountain there is another village where men receive food from the wide water.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

What is their secret for persuading the wide water to feed them

THE HUNTER

I do not know. Some throw blankets into the sea. Perhaps they are gifts for the wide water and so it feeds them.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Blankets? Is the wide water so cold?

THE HUNTER

I do not know. The blankets were full of holes. If I were the wide water, I would not think it such a fine present.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

The blankets were full of holes?

THE HUNTER

Like the webs of spiders. And some of their men stabbed at the sea with a split wand with sharp points. Perhaps they threaten the wide water.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Is the wide water to be frightened by a split wand?  I would think it would swallow it without resisting. Is that not the lesson the wide water teaches us? To win by yielding?  What kind of people is it that would threaten the wide water that feeds them?

THE HUNTER

Barbarians, of course. Their young women are pretty, but they have hardly any clothes. The ocean nibbles at their bare toes as they throw their blankets into the wide water.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Are they playing games with the wide water? Is that the secret that makes the wide water feed them?  

THE HUNTER

They are pagans. Barbarians. They drink the milk of the coconut.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Can they not make wine from their rice? Have they no goats to milk?

THE HUNTER

I saw none. They are primitive people. They use gourds to make music or pound the empty shells of turtles.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Have they no reed pipes? No bells? No drums?

THE HUNTER

I heard none. They are barbarians. They apparently do not hunt, for I saw no long bows or throwing spears.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

Is it so?  Would these strange people share their secret of taking food from the sea with us, do you think.

THE HUNTER

I do not think so. They are not like us. Their skins are brown like the fur of the great bear, and their hair is black like rich earth.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

And you feel these people have no hunting skills?

THE HUNTER

I do not think so.

GRANDFATHER ELDER

The problem is plain. We must feed our children, and we have neither grain nor game animals. The barbarians on the other side of the mountains have food which they take from the wide water, but, being barbarians, they would probably not share their secrets or their food with us.

THE HUNTER

Then shall we prepare for war?

GRANDFATHER ELDER

We shall speak of it with the others.