Thag not like f#&*ing shaman!

His mate Onga had finally pushing him too far, and now, Thag was hip-deep in mammoth dung, as they said in the Thunka Grunka clan.

He’d returned from the latest hunting expedition flush with success. His new regime of taking risks — but not crazy risks like trying to kill a cave lion with a deadfall, using yourself as bait, as the demented (and now late) Fungo had tried to do — was working well.

He was becoming much more respected in the tribe and word was even spreading within the clan. This new prestige made it even more difficult to find Onga receiving special “medicine” from the shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother on the day of their homecoming.

Ever since the Great Storm, Thag was convinced that Weasel was only out for his own power — and in the case of Onga and the other fertile women of the tribe — pleasure. So, he’d naturally, lost his temper.

He had managed to not actually physically assault the medicine man; but his self-restraint only went so far, and Thag had called Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother a “festering carbuncle” and used some phrases that in the Thunka Grunka clan were definitely taboo, especially when applied to a holy man.

Thag wished it were only mammoth dung he was hip deep in — as a punishment for his disrespect and “potty mouth”, the elders had told Thag to expand the tribe’s latrine.

It would take a week for his sense of smell to recover, and in the meanwhile, Fungo’s idiot brother, Jungo, was leading the next hunting party. Thag just hoped they all didn’t get killed.

He poked at the earth with his digging stick, dislodging a large stone, which landed in the sewage beneath him, splashing him copiously.

“Great, now Thag covered with shaman,” Thag muttered to himself, and despite the stench, grinned.

Other potty-mouths continue the tradition today.

Here’s the science: Cursing is a human universal.

Originally published in 2005.