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Cetian
Creechie is a derogatory term for the native inhabitants of Athshe, who are otherwise known as Athsheans. The slur is largely used by human soldiers like Don Davidson, who dislike the Athsheans and want to harm them.
Creechie Quotes in The Word for World is Forest
The The Word for World is Forest quotes below are all either spoken by Creechie or refer to Creechie. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter One
Quotes
Get enough humans here, build machines and robots, make farms and cities, and nobody would need the creechies any more. And a good thing too. For this world, New Tahiti, was literally made for men. Cleaned up and cleaned out, the dark forests cut down for open fields of grain, the primeval murk and savagery and ignorance wiped out, it would be a paradise, a real Eden. A better world than worn-out Earth. And it would be his world. For that’s what Don Davidson was, way down deep inside him: a world-tamer. He wasn’t a boastful man, but he knew his own size. It just happened to be the way he was made. He knew what he wanted, and how to get it.
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Davidson saw then the telltale tension of the creature’s stance, yet it sprang at him so lithe and oblique that his shot missed, burning an arm or shoulder instead of smack between the eyes. And the creechie was on him, half his size and weight yet knocking him right off balance by its onslaught, for he had been relying on the gun and not expecting attack. The thing’s arms were thin, tough, coarse-furred in his grip, and as he struggled with it, it sang.
He was down on his back, pinned down, disarmed. […] He had never looked up into a creechie’s face from below. Always down, from above. From on top. He tried not to struggle, for at the moment it was wasted effort. Little as they were, they outnumbered him, and Scarface had his gun.
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Davidson’s hands were steady now, his body felt appeased, and he knew he wasn’t caught in any dream. He headed back over the Straits, to take the news to Centralville. As he flew he could feel his face relax into its usual calm lines. They couldn’t blame the disaster on him, for he hadn’t even been there. Maybe they’d see that it was significant that the creechies had struck while he was gone, knowing they’d fail if he was there to organize the defense. And there was one good thing that would come out of this. They’d do like they should have done to start with, and clean up the planet for human occupation. Not even Lyubov could stop them from rubbing out the creechies now, not when they heard it was Lyubov’s pet creechie who’d led the massacre! They’d go in for rat-extermination for a while, now; and maybe, just maybe, they’d hand that little job over to him. At that thought he could have smiled.
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Chapter Four
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The fact is, the only time a man is really and entirely a man is when he’s just had a woman or just killed another man. That wasn’t original, he’d read it in some old books; but it was true. That was why he liked to imagine scenes like that. Even if the creechies weren’t actually men.
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Chapter Seven
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No sound, no noise at all, until that screech from the guard; then one gunshot; then an explosion—a land mine going up—and another, one after another, and hundreds and hundreds of torches flaring up lit one from another and being thrown and soaring through the black wet air like rockets, and the walls of the stockade coming alive with creechies, pouring in, pouring over, pushing, swarming, thousands of them. It was like an army of rats Davidson had seen once when he was a little kid, in the last Famine, in the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up. Something had driven the rats out of their holes and they had come up in daylight, seething up over the wall, a pulsing blanket of fur and eyes and little hands and teeth, and he had yelled for his mom and run like crazy, or was that only a dream he’d had when he was a kid?
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Get the entire The Word for World is Forest LitChart as a printable PDF.
Creechie Term Timeline in The Word for World is Forest
The timeline below shows where the term Creechie appears in The Word for World is Forest. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter One
Davidson gets out of bed and calls for his creechie, Ben, ordering him to prepare the hot water. After dressing, Davidson exits his hut into...
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...bring breakfast, so Davidson yells again. While Ben is old and “dumb even for a creechie,” Davidson knows how to get him to work. He could tame any creechie, but he’s...
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...over the centuries. The big difference is that humans died out on New Tahiti, and creechies—three-foot-tall descendants of monkeys—have become humanity’s closest replacement. They’re quite inferior to humans, though.
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...today) and admires the scenery as Ok tells him that he wants to let the creechies in the mill go, since he—unlike Davidson—can’t get them to work. The history course that...
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Ok argues that the creechies too little and it doesn’t work to starve them, but Davidson says that they’re tough...
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Davidson senses that Ok won’t hurt creechies due to their small size, so he suggests that Ok threaten them with hallucinogens, which...
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...an alarm when he hears alien voices. As he ducks behind the shack’s roof, four creechies pass by, none wearing the shorts and collar that tame creechies wear—the Volunteer creechies must...
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Brandishing a gun, Davidson jumps out and asks who started the fire. The crazy creechie, who has a scar from Davidson on his face, says that the creechies burned the...
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The creechie jumps at Davidson, dodging Davidson’s gunshot. He then pins Davidson down, grabs his gun, and,...
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Davidson gets up and notices that another creechie is pointing a gun at him: it’s his creechie, Ben. Davidson begins walking away, and...
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...kill him; it’s impossible. He jumps into the hopper and circles around looking for the creechies, but they’re gone. Using the hopper’s machine guns, he shoots at the ground until the...
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Chapter Three
...Athsheans to destroy Smith, and the colonists weren’t involved. Davidson referred to the Athsheans as “creechies” in his report.
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Lepennon admits that he misunderstood, as he thought “creechie” was the name for a lesser Terran caste. He’d assumed the Athsheans were nonviolent, which...
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...not been sent to the Shackleton along with his studies. Yung has likely seen the creechie-pens where the humans keep the Athsheans prisoner, but Lepennon and Or wouldn’t know anything about...
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Chapter Four
...and the Hainish are in on it, since “rats help rats.” They’re planning to let creechies kill the New Tahiti humans, and Dongh is going to let them. Dongh told Davidson...
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...But Davidson will get things back to normal. After the meeting, the men let the creechies out of the pens, and none were loyal enough to stay, the way even a...
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...to defend themselves. It makes Davidson excited to think about dropping “firejelly” and watching the creechies scatter, especially because he associates the thought with beating up Sam. According to some books...
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...see that he’s not a traitor, since he knows they have to get rid of creechies to make this place safe. Davidson starts disseminating this message among the loggers, who have...
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Even the ecological officer here, Atranda, hates creechies—to an absurd, extra-paranoid degree, actually, but he’s a good man to have around. Davidson doesn’t...
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When Davidson has convinced a group of trustworthy men of the creechie threat, he takes them to a creechie town in the woods, which they burn together....
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The men don’t take a female creechie to rape, since they agreed with Davidson that it was perverted. Perversions like homosexuality are...
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Chapter Six
...in total insanity for two days. Currently, 500 yumens are being held prisoner in the creechie-pens, and some have escaped. Some are still being killed, as Selver’s people can hear his...
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...that he needs to talk with the yumens in the compound. They head to the creechie-pen, where Reswan asks for Colonel Dongh in broken English. Gosse comes out instead, saying that...
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...tells Selver that he has a headache. The next day, the captive yumens in the creechie-pen ask to speak to Selver. Along with Reswan and a few others, Selver meets Gosse,...
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...a spy. But Benton presses on, saying that Lyubov was the one who made the creechies want to attack, and that Lyubov’s interference (at the meeting) forced the change in orders...
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Selver interrupts the men and apologizes for putting them in the creechie-pen, which is bad “for the mind.” He asks Dongh to send for the rest of...
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Chapter Seven
...and everything he’s learned from HQ since. No one knows the full truth except the creechies, but clearly the attack at Central was an “inside job,” aided by Lyubov—and the creechies...
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The creechies say the women are dead, but that’s probably a lie, and the creechies are probably...
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...hard for the rest of the humans, since they have a neutrality agreement with the creechies. Davidson insisted that his men could still retaliate, even outnumbered, which Juju thought was insane....
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...in New Java, but then he realized they were too afraid, since they promised the creechies that they wouldn’t use the hoppers. Absolutely insane. Davidson has waited long enough to attack;...
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...Later that day, someone on the radio—maybe Gosse—berates Davidson for thinking he can make the creechies surrender. Davidson asks if he can pick up some desserts and drugs from Central if...
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The creechies don’t do anything about Davidson’s raids, which proves his theory that you just have to...
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Suddenly, one of Davidson’s guards starts screaming, and a gun goes off. Thousands of creechies swarm in, which sets off the landmines, but they keep coming. It’s just like the...
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...them to Central. Davidson orders Aabi to circle around Java instead, so that while the creechies burn camp, they can burn the creechies. Aabi says that they can’t do that, because...
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...can’t see it from the sky now. Davidson couldn’t have predicted this attack, since the creechies came out of nowhere. Aabi must be messing with him and pretending not to know...
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...hide in a bush, the light shines on him and he sees a group of creechies. Remembering what Lyubov said, he turns on his back, shuts his eyes, and exposes his...
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...at him from above. It’s no longer nighttime. Selver doesn’t have a weapon, but the creechies surrounding him have spears and stolen revolvers. He tells Selver to hurry up and kill...
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...Davidson. He could run, as they wouldn’t dare to kill him. Instead, he follows the creechies.
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