by Jean M. Auel
The drape was pulled back, and Deegie beckoned Ayla to follow her in, but someone at the entrance stopped her.
"Deegie, you know we don't let visitors in here," she said. "We're practicing."
"But, Kylie, she is a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth," Deegie said, surprised.
"I don't see any tattoo. How can she be Mamut without a tattoo?"
"This is Ayla, daughter of old Mamut. He adopted her to the Mammoth Hearth."
"Oh. Just a moment, let me ask."
Deegie was impatient while they waited again, but Ayla looked more closely at the lodge, and got the impression that it had slumped, or fallen in somewhat.
"Why didn't you tell me she's the one with the animals?" Kylie said when she came back. "Come in."
"You should know I wouldn't bring anyone here who wasn't acceptable," Deegie said.
It was not dark in the lodge, the smoke hole was somewhat bigger than usual, and allowed light inside, but it did take awhile for eyes to adjust after the bright sunshine outside. At first, Ayla thought the person Deegie was talking to was a child. But when she saw her, Ayla realized she was probably somewhat older, not younger than her tall, stocky friend. The misimpression was caused by the difference in size between the two women. Kylie was small with a slender build, almost dainty, and next to Deegie, it was easy to mistake her for a child, but her lithe, supple movements bespoke the confidence and experience of maturity.
Though the shelter had seemed large from the outside, there was less room inside than Ayla had imagined. The ceiling was lower than usual, and half the usable space in the room was taken up by four mammoth skulls, which were partially buried in the floor with the tusk sockets upright. The trunks of small trees had been placed in the sockets, and were used as supports to brace the ceiling, which had slumped or fallen in. It struck Ayla, as she looked around, that this lodge was far from new. The wood and the thatching had the grayness of age. There were none of the usual household goods or large cooking hearths to be seen, only one small fireplace. The floor had been swept clean, leaving only dark traces of the former major hearths.
Ropes had been strung between the supporting uprights, and drapes, which could be used to divide the space, hung from them, bunched up at one end. Thrown over the ropes, or hanging from pegs on the posts, was the most unusual array of objects Ayla had ever seen. Colorful outfits, fantastic and ornate headgear, strings of ivory beads and seashells, pendants of bone and amber, and some things she couldn't begin to understand.
There were several people in the lodge. Some were sitting around a small fireplace, sipping from cups; a couple more were in the light streaming in through the smoke hole, sewing garments. To the left of the entrance, several people were sitting or kneeling on mats on the floor near large mammoth bones, decorated with red lines and zigzags. Ayla identified a leg bone, a shoulder blade, two lower jawbones, a pelvis bone, and a skull. They were greeted warmly, but Ayla felt they were interrupting something. Everyone seemed to be looking at them, as though waiting to find out why they had come.
"Don't stop practicing for us," Deegie said. "I brought Ayla to meet you, but we don't want to interrupt. We'll wait until you are ready to stop." The people turned back to their task, while Deegie and Ayla sat down on mats nearby.
A woman who was kneeling in front of the large femur began tapping out a steady beat with a hammer-shaped section of reindeer antler, but the sounds she was producing were more than rhythmic. As she hit the leg bone in different places, a resonant, melodic sound emerged, which changed in pitch and tone. Ayla looked more closely, wondering what caused the unusual timbre.
The leg bone was about thirty inches long and rested horizontally on two props that kept it off the ground. The epiphysis at the upper end had been removed, and some of the spongy inner material had been taken out, enlarging the natural canal. The bone was painted across the top with evenly spaced zigzag stripes in dark ochre red, similar to the patterns found so frequently on everything from footwear to house construction, but these seemed to serve more than a decorative or symbolic function. After watching for a while, Ayla felt sure the woman who was playing the leg-bone instrument was using the pattern of stripes as a guide to where she should strike to produce the tone she wanted.
Ayla had heard skull drums and Tornec's scapula played. All had some tonal variation, but she had never heard such a range of musical tones before. These people seemed to think she had some magical gifts, but this seemed more magical than anything she had ever done. A man began to tap on the mammoth shoulder blade like Tornec's with an antler hammer. The timbre and tone had a different resonance, a sharper quality, yet the sound complemented and added interest to the music that the woman played on the leg bone.
The large triangular-shaped scapula was about twenty-five inches long, with a narrow neck at the top, broadening out to about twenty inches along the bottom edge. He held the instrument by the neck, upright, in a vertical position, with the wide bottom resting on the ground. It was also painted with parallel, zigzag stripes in bright red. Each stripe, about the width of a small finger, was divided by spaces of equal width, and each one had a perfectly straight and even edge. In the center of the broad lower area most frequently struck, the red pattern of stripes was worn away and the bone was shiny from long, repeated use.
When the rest of the mammoth bone instruments joined in, Ayla held her breath. At first she could only listen, overwhelmed by the complex sound of the music, but after a while she concentrated on each one individually.
An older man played the larger of the lower jawbones, but rather than an antler hammer, he used an end piece of mammoth tusk, about twelve inches long, grooved around to make a knob at the thicker end. The mandible itself was painted, like the other instruments, but only on the right half. It was turned and rested steady, supported by the left undecorated side, which kept the right playing half off the ground for a clear, undamped sound. While playing it, he tapped along the parallel zigzag red bands that were painted within the hollow as well as along the outer edge of the cheek, and he rubbed the piece of ivory over the ridged surface of the tooth, to create a rasping accent.
A woman played the other jawbone, which was from a younger animal. It was twenty inches long, and fifteen inches across at its widest part, and was also painted with red zigzag stripes on the right side. A deep hole, about two inches wide by five inches long, where a tooth had been removed, altered the resonance and emphasized the higher-pitched tone.
The woman who played the pelvic-bone instrument also held it upright, resting one edge on the ground. She tapped, with an antler hammer, mostly in the center of the bone where a small natural inward curvature was found. The sounds were intensified and the changes in tone distinct at that place, and the red stripes painted there were almost entirely worn away.
Ayla was familiar with the strong, resonant, lower tones of the mammoth skull drum played by a young man. It was like the drums played by Deegie and Mamut with such skill. The drum was also painted where it was struck, on the forehead and roof of the skull, but in this case it did not have zigzag lines, but a distinctly different pattern of branched lines and disconnected marks and dots.
After the people stopped playing, on a satisfactorily conclusive note, they became involved in a discussion. Deegie joined in, but Ayla just listened, trying to understand the unfamiliar terms, but not wanting to intrude.
"The piece needs balance as well as harmony," the woman who played the leg-bone instrument was saying. "I think we could introduce a wind reed before Kylie dances."
"I'm sure you could convince Barzec to sing that part, Tharie," Deegie said.
"It would be better to work him in later. Kylie and Barzec both would be too much. One would detract from the other. No, I think a five-tone crane wind reed would be best. Let's try it, Manen," she said to a man with a neatly trimmed beard, who had joined them from the other group.
Tharie started playing again, and this time, the sounds were becoming fam
iliar to the newcomer. Ayla felt pleased to be allowed to watch, and wanted nothing more than to sit quietly and enjoy this new experience. With the introduction of the haunting tones of the wind reed, a flutelike instrument made of the hollow leg bone of a crane, Ayla was suddenly reminded of the eerie spiritual voice of Ursus, the Great Cave Bear, from the Clan Gathering. Only one mog-ur could make that sound. It was a secret passed down through his line, but he had held something to his mouth. It must have been the same kind of thing, she thought.
Nothing, however, moved Ayla so much as when Kylie started dancing. Ayla noticed first that she wore loose bracelets on each arm, similar to the Sungaea dancer's. Each bracelet was made of a set of five thin strips of mammoth ivory, perhaps a half-inch wide, incised with diagonal cut marks radiating out from a central diamond shape in a way that created an overall zigzag pattern when all five were held together. A small hole had been bored through at each end to tie them together, and they rattled together when she moved in a certain way.
Kylie stayed in one place, more or less, sometimes slowly assuming impossible positions which she held, and other times making acrobatic movements, which caused the loose bracelets she wore on each arm to rattle as emphasis. The motions of the supple, strong woman were so graceful and smooth she made it look easy, but Ayla knew she could never have made them. She was enthralled with the performance, and found herself making spontaneous comments after she was through, the way the Mamutoi so often did.
"How do you do that? It was wonderful! Everything. The sounds, the movements. I have never seen anything like it," Ayla said. The smiles of appreciation showed her comments were well received.
Deegie sensed that the musicians felt satisfied and their need for intense concentration had passed. They were more relaxed now, ready for a rest, and ready to satisfy their curiosity about the mysterious woman who had apparently come out of nowhere and was now a Mamutoi. The coals in the fireplace were stirred, wood added, and cooking rocks, and water for tea poured into a wooden cooking bowl.
"Certainly you've seen something like it, Ayla," Kylie said.
"No, not at all," Ayla protested.
"What about the rhythms you were showing me?" Deegie said.
"That's not the same at all. Those are just simple Clan rhythms."
"Clan rhythms?" Tharie asked. "What are Clan rhythms?"
"The Clan are the people I grew up with," Ayla started to explain.
"They are deceptively simple," Deegie interrupted, "but they evoke strong feelings."
"Can you show us?" the young man who played the skull drum asked.
Deegie looked at Ayla. "Shall we, Ayla?" she asked, then went on to explain to the others. "We've been playing around with them a little.".
"I guess we could," Ayla said.
"Let's do it," Deegie said. "We need something to make a deep steady beat, muffled, no resonance, like something striking the ground, if Ayla can use your drum, Marut."
"I think wrapping a piece of leather around this striker might work," Tharie said, volunteering her leg-bone instrument.
The musicians were intrigued. The promise of something new was always interesting. Deegie kneeled on the mat in Tharie's place, and Ayla sat cross-legged close to the drum and tapped it to get the feel. Then Deegie hit the leg-bone instrument in a few places until Ayla indicated the sound was right.
When they were ready, Deegie began beating a slow steady pace, changing the tempo slightly until she saw Ayla nod, but not changing the tone at all. Ayla closed her eyes, and when she felt herself moving to Deegie's steady beat, she joined in. The timbre of the skull drum was too resonant to replicate exactly the sounds Ayla remembered. It was difficult to create the sense of a sharp crack of thunder, for example; the sharp staccato beats came out more like a sustained rumbling, but she had been practicing with a drum like it. Soon she was weaving an unusual contrapuntal rhythm around the strong, steady beat, a seemingly random pattern of staccato sounds that varied in tempo. The two sets of rhythms were so distinct they bore no relationship to each other, yet a stressed beat of Ayla's rhythms coincided with every fifth beat of Deegie's steady sound, almost as if by accident.
The two rhythms had the effect of producing an increasing sense of expectation, and after a while, a slight feeling of anxiety until the two beats, though it seemed impossible that they ever would, came together. With each release, another surge of tension mounted. At the moment when it seemed no one could stand it any more, Ayla and Deegie stopped before a concluding beat, and left a heightened expectation hanging in the air. Then, to Deegie's surprise as much as anyone, a windy, reedy, flutelike whistle was heard, with a haunting, eerie not-quite melody, that sent a shiver through the listeners. It ended on a note of closure, but a sense of otherworldliness still lingered.
No one said a word for some moments. Finally Tharie said, "What strange, asymmetrical, compelling music." Then several people wanted Ayla to show them the rhythms, eager to try them out.
"Who played the wind reed?" Tharie asked, knowing it wasn't Manen, who had been standing beside her.
"No one did," Deegie said. "It wasn't an instrument. Ayla was whistling."
"Whistling? How does anyone whistle like that?"
"Ayla can imitate any whistling sound," Deegie said. "You ought to hear her bird calls. Even they think she's a bird. She can get them to come and eat out of her hand. It's part of her way with animals."
"Would you show us a bird whistle, Ayla?" Tharie said, in a tone that sounded unbelieving.
She didn't think it was really the place, but went through a quick repertoire of bird whistles, which brought the astonished looks Deegie had expected.
Ayla was grateful when Kylie offered to show her around. She was shown some of the costumes and other paraphernalia, and discovered that some of the headpieces were actually face masks. Most things were garishly colored, but worn at night, by firelight, the colors of the costumes would stand out, yet appear normal. Someone was grinding red ochre from a small pouch, and mixing it into fat. With a chill, she again remembered Creb rubbing a paste of red ochre on Iza's body before her burial, but she was told it would be used to decorate and add color to the faces and bodies of the players and dancers. She noticed ground charcoal and white chalk, too.
Ayla watched a man sewing beads on a tunic, using an awl, and it occurred to her how much easier it would be with a thread-puller, but she decided to have Deegie bring one over. She was getting too much attention as it was, and it made her uncomfortable. They looked at strings of beads and other jewelry, and Kylie held up two conical spiral seashells to her ears.
"Too bad your ears are not pierced," she said. "These would look nice on you."
"They are nice," Ayla said. She noticed the holes in Kylie's ears then, and in her nose as well. She liked Kylie, and admired her, and felt a rapport that could lead to friendship.
"Why don't you take them anyway? You can talk to Deegie or Tulie and have them do it. And you really should have a tattoo, Ayla. Then you can go wherever you want, and won't have to keep explaining that you belong to the Mammoth Hearth."
"But I'm really not Mamut," Ayla said.
"I think you are, Ayla. I'm not sure what the rites are, but I know Lomie would not hesitate if you told her you were ready to dedicate yourself to the Mother."
"I'm not sure if I am ready."
"Maybe not, but you will be. I feel it in you."
When she and Deegie left, Ayla realized she had been given something very special, a private look behind the scenes that few people were allowed to see. It was a place of mystery, even uncloaked and explained, but how much more magical and supernatural it must seem, she thought, when seen from outside. Ayla glanced toward the flint-working area as they were leaving, but Jondalar was not there.
She followed as Deegie walked through the encampment, heading toward the back of the hollow, looking for friends and relations, and finding out where all the various Camps were located. They passed an area where three
Camps, tucked in among brush, faced a clearing. There was a noticeable feeling about the area that was different, but Ayla couldn't put her finger on it at first. Then she began to notice specific details. The tents were ragged, and not well hung, and holes were poorly patched, if at all. A strong unpleasant smell and the buzz of flies called her attention to a rotting piece of meat left on the ground between two tents, and then she noticed more garbage strewn haphazardly around. She knew that children often got dirty, but the ones that were staring at them looked like they hadn't been clean for some time. Their clothes were grimy, their hair unkempt, their faces dirty. There was an unsavory squalor about the place.
Ayla noticed Chaleg lounging in front of one tent. Her appearance there took him by surprise, and his first expression was one of malicious hatred. It shocked her. Only Broud had ever looked at her that way. Then Chaleg covered it, but the insincere, malevolent smile was almost worse than the blatant hatred.
"Let's leave this area," Deegie said, with a sniff of disdain. "It's always a good idea to know where they are, so you know what to avoid."
Suddenly there was a loud eruption of screaming and shouting as two children, a boy in his early teens and a girl about eleven years, came running out of one of the tents.
"You give that back to me! Do you hear? You give that back to me!" the girl screamed as she chased after the boy.
"You've got to catch me first, little sister," the boy taunted, holding something in her face and shaking it.
"You… Oh, you… Give that back!" the girl screamed again and ran after him with a new burst of speed.
The boy's smile made it clear that he was taking great delight in the girl's anger and frustration, but when he turned back to look at her, he failed to notice an exposed root. He tripped and fell heavily, and the girl was on top of him, hitting and pounding with all her might. He hit her in the face then, with great force, and brought a spurt of blood from her nose. She cried out, and struck him back in the mouth, tearing his lip.