by Jean M. Auel
In a separate, more isolated area of the shelter, Zelandoni Who Was First had been talking with the other Zelandonia and their acolytes, feeling just a little annoyed that Ayla, who was her acolyte, had not joined them. She knew she had pushed her into it, but Ayla was already an accomplished healer when she had arrived, and had other remarkable skills besides, including knowing how to control animals. She belonged in the zelandonia!
The Zelandoni of the Seventh had asked the First a question and was waiting for an answer with a patient expression. He had noticed that the Zelandoni of the Ninth Cave seemed distracted and a bit annoyed. He had been observing her since the visitors had arrived and had seen her irritation grow, and guessed why. When Zelandonia visited each other with their acolytes, it was a good time to teach the novices some of the knowledge and lore they had to learn and memorize, and her acolyte was not here. But, he thought, if the First was going to choose an acolyte who had a mate and a new baby, she had to know her full attention would not be devoted to the zelandonia.
“Excuse me for a moment,” the First said, pulling herself up from a mat on a low stone ledge and walking toward the group of chattering young mothers. “Ayla,” she said, smiling. She was adept at hiding her true feelings. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the Zelandoni of the Seventh Cave just asked me a question about setting broken bones, and I thought you might have some thoughts to contribute.”
“Of course, Zelandoni,” she said. “Let me get Jonayla; she’s right over there.”
Ayla got up, but hesitated when she looked down at her sleeping baby. Wolf looked up at her and whined, beating his tail against the ground. He was lying beside the infant that he considered to be his special charge. Wolf had been the last of the litter of a lone wolf that Ayla had killed for stealing from her traps, before she knew it was a nursing mother. She had tracked back to the den, found one living cub, and had brought him back with her. He had grown up in the close confines of the Mamutoi winter dwelling. He was so young when she found him—he would have counted perhaps four weeks—that he had imprinted on humans, and he adored the youngsters, especially the young one born to Ayla.
“I hate to disturb her. She just fell asleep. She’s not used to visiting and has been overexcited this evening,” Ayla said.
“We can watch her,” Levela said, then grinned. “At least help Wolf. He won’t let her out of his sight. If she wakes, we’ll bring her over. But now that she has finally settled down, I don’t think she’ll stir for some time.”
“Thank you, Levela,” Ayla said, then smiled at her and the woman beside her. “You really are Proleva’s sister. Do you know how much you are like her?”
“I know I’ve missed her since she mated Joharran,” Levela said, looking at her sister. “We were always close. Proleva was almost a second mother to me.”
Ayla followed the One Who Was First back to the group of Those Who Served The Mother. She noticed that most of the local zelandonia were there. In addition to the First, who was the Zelandoni of the Ninth Cave, and of course the Zelandonia of the Second and Seventh Caves, there were also the Zelandonia of the Third and Eleventh Caves. The Zelandoni of the Fourteenth had not come, but she had sent her first acolyte. There were several other acolytes. Ayla recognized the two younger women and a young man, from the Second and Seventh Caves. She smiled at Mejera from the Third Cave and greeted the elderly man who was the Zelandoni of the Seventh, and then the woman who was the daughter of his hearth, the Zelandoni of the Second, who was also the mother of Jondecam. Ayla had been wanting to get to know the Second better. Not many of the Zelandoni had children, but she was a woman who had been mated and had raised two children—and her brother Kimeran after their mother died—and now was a Zelandoni.
“Ayla has had more experience than most in setting bones, Zelandoni of the Seventh. You should ask her your question,” the First said, settling back down and indicating a mat next to her for Ayla.
“I know if a fresh break is set straight, it will heal straight—I’ve done it many times—but someone was asking me if anything could be done if a break was not set straight and it healed crooked,” the older man asked immediately. He was not only interested in her response, he had heard so much about her skill from the One Who Was First, he wanted to see if she would be flustered by a direct question from someone of his age and experience.
Ayla had just dropped down to the mat and turned to face him. She had a way of lowering herself that was particularly fluid and graceful, he noticed, and a way of looking at him that was direct yet not quite, that somehow conveyed a sense of respect. Though she had expected to be formally introduced to the other acolytes, and was surprised to be questioned so quickly, she responded without hesitation.
“It depends on the break and how long it has been healing,” Ayla said. “If it’s an old break, it’s hard to do much. Healed bone, even if it healed wrong, is often stronger than bone that was not injured. If you try to rebreak it to set it right, the uninjured bone is likely to break instead. But if the break has just started to mend, sometimes it can be broken again and set straight.”
“Have you ever done it?” the Seventh asked, a bit put off by the way she spoke; it was odd, not like the way Kimeran’s pretty mate spoke, with a rather pleasant shift in certain sounds. When Jondalar’s foreign woman spoke, it was almost as though she swallowed certain sounds.
“Yes,” Ayla said. She had the feeling she was being tested, something like the way Iza used to ask her questions about healing practices and plant uses. “On our Journey here, we stopped to visit some people that Jondalar had met earlier, the Sharamudoi. Nearly a moon before we arrived, a woman he knew had taken a bad fall and had broken her arm. It was healing wrong, bent in such a way that she couldn’t use it, and it was very painful. Their healer had died earlier that winter, and they did not have a new one yet, and no one else knew how to set an arm. I managed to rebreak her arm and reset it. It was not perfect, but it was better. She would not have full use, but she would be able to use it, and by the time we left, it was healing well and not causing her pain anymore,” Ayla explained.
“Didn’t breaking her arm cause her pain?” a young man asked.
“I don’t think she felt the pain. I gave her something to make her sleep and relax her muscles. I know it as datura …”
“Datura?” the old man interrupted. Her accent was particularly heavy when she said the word.
“In Mamutoi it’s called a word that might mean ‘thorn apple’ in Zelandoni, because at one stage it bears a fruit that could be described that way. It’s a strong-smelling large plant with big white flowers that flare out from the stem,” Ayla said.
“Yes, I believe I know the one,” the old Zelandoni of the Seventh Cave said.
“How did you know what to do?” asked the young woman who was sitting beside the old man, in a tone that sounded full of wonder that someone who was just an acolyte could have known so much.
“Yes, that is a good question,” the Seventh said. “How did you know what to do? Where did you get your experience? You seem quite knowledgeable for one so young.”
Ayla glanced at the First, who seemed rather pleased. She wasn’t sure why, but she had the impression that the woman was satisfied by her recitation.
“The woman who took me in and raised me when I was a little girl was a medicine woman of her people, a healer. She was training me to be a medicine woman, too. Men of the Clan use a different kind of spear than Zelandonii men when they hunt. It’s longer and thicker and they don’t usually throw it; they jab with it, so they have to get close. It’s more dangerous and they were often hurt. Sometimes the hunters of the Clan traveled quite a long distance. If someone broke a bone, they weren’t always able to return right away and the bone would start to heal before it could be set. I assisted Iza a few times when she had to rebreak and reset bones, and I also helped the medicine women at the Clan Gathering do the same.”
“These people you call the Clan, are they really
the same as Flatheads?” the young man asked.
She had been asked that question before, and she thought by the same young man. “That is your word for them,” Ayla said again.
“It’s hard to believe they could do so much,” he said.
“Not for me. I lived with them.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, then the First changed the subject. “I think this would be a good time for the acolytes to learn or, for some of you, to review counting words, some of their uses and meanings. You all know the counting words, but what can you do if there are large amounts to count? Zelandoni of the Second Cave, would you explain?”
Ayla’s interest was quickened. Suddenly fascinated, she leaned forward. She knew counting could be more complex and powerful than just the simple counting words, if one understood how to do it. The First noted her attention with satisfaction. She was sure that Ayla had a particular curiosity about the concept of counting.
“You can use your hands,” the Second said, and held up both hands. “With the right hand, you count on your fingers as each word is said up to five.” She made a fist, and lifted each finger in turn as she counted, beginning with the thumb. “You can count another five on your left hand until you get to ten, but that is as far as you can go with just counting. But instead of using the left hand to count the second five, you can bend down one finger, the thumb, to hold the first five,” she held up her left hand with the back facing out, “then count again on the right hand, and bend down the second counting finger of the left hand to hold it.” She bent her index finger on top of her thumb, so that she was holding open both hands, except for the index finger and thumb of her left hand. “That means ten,” she said. “If I hold down the next finger, that means fifteen. The next finger is twenty, and next one twenty-five.”
Ayla was amazed. She comprehended the idea immediately, though it was more complex than the simple counting words Jondalar had taught her. She remembered the first time she learned the concept of calculating the number of things. It was Creb, the Mog-ur of the Clan, who had shown her, but essentially he could only count to ten. The first time he showed her his way of counting, when she was still a girl, he placed each finger of one hand on five different stones and then, since one arm had been amputated below the elbow, he did it a second time imagining that it was his other hand. With great difficulty, he could stretch his imagination to count to twenty, which was why it had shocked and upset him when she had counted to twenty-five with ease.
She didn’t use words, the way Jondalar did. She did it with pebbles, showing Creb twenty-five by placing her five fingers on different stones five times. Creb had struggled to learn to count, but she understood the concept with ease. He told her never to tell anyone what she had done. He knew she was different from the Clan, but he hadn’t understood how different until then, and he knew it would distress them, especially Brun and the men, perhaps enough to drive her out.
Most of the Clan could count only one, two, three, and many, though they could indicate some gradations of many, and they had other ways of understanding quantities. For example, they didn’t have counting words for the years of a child’s life, but they knew that a child in his birthing year was younger than a child who was in his walking year or his weaning year. It was also true that Brun didn’t have to count the people of his clan. He knew the name of everyone and with just a quick glance, he knew if someone was not there, and who it was. Most people shared that ability to some degree. Once they were with a limited number of people for a period of time, they intuitively sensed if someone was missing.
Ayla knew that if her understanding of counting upset Creb, who loved her, it would disturb the rest of the Clan even more, so she never mentioned it, but she hadn’t forgotten. She used her limited knowledge of counting for herself, especially when she lived alone in the valley. She had marked the passing of time by cutting marks on a stick every day. She knew how many seasons and years she had lived in the valley even without having counting words, but when Jondalar came, he was able to tally the marks on her sticks and tell her how long she had been there. To her, it was like magic. Now that she had an idea how he had done it, she was hungry to learn more.
“There are ways to count even higher, but it is more complicated,” the Second continued, then smiled, “as with most things associated with the zelandonia.” Those watching smiled back. “Most signs have more than one meaning. Both hands can mean ten or twenty-five, and it’s not hard to understand what is meant when you are talking about it, because when you mean ten, you face the palms out; when you mean twenty-five, you turn the palms inward. When you hold them facing in, you can count again, but this time use the left hand, and hold the number with the right.” She demonstrated and the acolytes mimicked her. “In that position, bending down the thumb means thirty, but when you count and hold to thirty-five, you don’t hold the thumb down; you just bend the next finger down. For forty, you bend down the middle finger, for forty-five the next; for fifty the small finger of the right hand is bent, and all the other fingers on both hands are out. The right hand with bent fingers is sometimes used alone to show those larger counting words. Even larger counting words can be made by bending more than one finger.”
Ayla had trouble bending just her little finger and holding that position. It was obvious that the rest of them had more practice, but she had no trouble understanding. The First saw Ayla grinning with amazement and delight, and nodded to herself. This is the way to keep her involved, she thought.
“A handprint can be made on a surface like a piece of wood or the wall of a cave, even on the bank of a stream,” the First added. “That hand sign can mean several different things. It may mean counting words, but it may mean something else entirely. If you want to leave a handprint sign, you can dip your palm in color and leave the mark, or you can place your hand on the surface and blow color on and around the back of it, which leaves a different kind of handprint. If you want to make a sign that means a counting word, dip the palm in color for the smaller ones, and blow color on the back of your hand to show the larger ones. One Cave to the south and east of here makes the sign of a large dot using color on only the palm, without showing the fingers.”
Ayla’s mind was racing, overwhelmed with the idea of counting. Creb, the greatest Mog-ur of the Clan, could, with great effort, count to twenty. She could count to twenty-five and represent it with just two hands in a way that others could understand it, and then increase that number. You could tell someone how many red deer had congregated at their spring calving grounds, how many young were born; a small number like five, a small group, twenty-five, or many more than that. It would be harder to count a large herd, but it could all be communicated. How much meat should be stored to last how many people through the winter? How many strings of dried roots? How many baskets of nuts. How many days will it take to reach the Summer Meeting place? How many people will be there? The possibilities were incredible. Counting words had tremendous significance, both real and symbolic.
The One Who Was First was talking again, and Ayla had to wrench her mind away from her contemplations. She was holding up one hand. “The number of fingers on one hand, five, is an important counting word in its own right. It represents the number of fingers on each hand, and the toes on each foot, of course, but that is only its superficial meaning. Five is also the Mother’s sacred counting word. Our hands and feet only remind us of that. Another thing that reminds us of that is the apple.” She produced a small, unripe hard apple and held it up. “If you hold an apple on its side and cut it in half, as if you were cutting through the stem within the fruit,” she demonstrated as she spoke, “you will see that the pattern of the seeds divides the apple into five sections. That is why the apple is the Mother’s sacred fruit.”
She passed out both sections to be examined by the acolytes, giving the top half to Ayla. “There are other important aspects of the counting-word five. As you will learn, you can see five stars in th
e sky that move in a random pattern each year, and there are five seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn, and the two cold periods, early winter and late winter. Most people think the year starts with spring when new green starts growing, but the zelandonia know that the beginning of the year is marked by the Winter Shortday, which is what divides early winter from late winter. The true year begins with late winter, then spring, summer, autumn, and early winter.”
“The Mamutoi count five seasons, too,” Ayla volunteered. “Actually three major seasons: spring, summer and winter, and two minor seasons: fall and midwinter. Perhaps it should be called late winter.” Some of the others were rather surprised that she would interject a comment when the First was explaining a basic concept, but the First smiled inwardly, pleased to see her getting involved. “They consider three to be a primary counting word because it represents woman, like the three-sided triangle with the point facing down represents woman, and the Great Mother. When they add the two others, fall and midwinter, seasons that mean changes are coming, it makes five. Mamut said five was Her counting word of hidden authority.”
“That’s very interesting, Ayla. We say five is Her sacred counting word. We also consider three to be an important concept, for similar reasons. I’d like to hear more about the people you call the Mamutoi, and their customs. Perhaps the next time the zelandonia meet,” the First said.
Ayla was listening with fascination. The First had a voice that captured attention, demanded it, when she chose to focus it, but it wasn’t only the voice. The knowledge and information she was imparting were stimulating and absorbing. Ayla wanted to know more.
“There are also five sacred colors and five sacred elements but it’s getting late and we’ll get into that next time,” said the One Who Was First Among Those Who Served The Great Earth Mother.
Ayla felt disappointed. She could have listened all night, but then she looked up and saw Folara coming with Jonayla. Her baby was awake.