The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

Ayla frowned, then nodded agreement. “Why not? After he’s colored with red ochre, the way the Clan does, he could be dressed in his best clothes, like the Mamutoi do for burials. Yes, I think that’s a good idea, Nezzie.”

“I never would have guessed red ochre was a sacred color at their burials, too,” Frebec commented.

“I didn’t even think they buried their dead,” Crozie said.

“Obviously, the Mammoth Hearth didn’t either,” Tulie said. “They are going to be in for a surprise.”

Ayla asked Deegie for one of the wooden bowls she had given her as an adoption gift, made in the Clan style, and used it to mix the red ochre and mammoth fat into a colored salve. But it was Nezzie, Crozie, and Tulie, the three oldest women of Lion Camp, who rubbed it on him, and then dressed him. Ayla put aside a small dab of the oily red paste for later, and put a lump of the red iron ore into the pouch she had made.

“What about wrapping him?” Nezzie asked. “Shouldn’t he be wrapped, Ayla?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Ayla said.

“We use a hide or a fur, or something, to carry him out, and then it’s wrapped around him before he is laid in the grave,” Nezzie explained.

It was another Mamutoi custom, Ayla realized, but it seemed that with dressing him so richly and putting all his jewelry on him, there was already more Mamutoi than Clan to this burial. The three women were watching her expectantly. She looked back at Tulie, then Nezzie. Yes, maybe Nezzie was right. Something should be used to carry him, some kind of bedding or cover. Then she looked at Crozie.

Suddenly, though she hadn’t thought of it for some time, she remembered something: Durc’s cloak. The cloak she had used to carry her son close to her breast when he was an infant, and to support him on her hip when he was a toddler. It was the one thing she had taken with her from the Clan that had no necessary purpose. Yet, how many nights when she was alone had Durc’s carrying cloak given her a sense of connection with the only place of security she had known, and to those she had loved. How many nights had she slept with that cloak? Cried into it? Rocked it? It was the one thing she owned that had belonged to her son, and she wasn’t sure if she could give it up, but did she really need it? Was she going to carry it around with her for the rest of her life?

Ayla noticed Crozie looking at her again, and remembered the white cape, the one that Crozie had made for her son. She had carried it around with her for many years, because it meant so much to her. But she had given it up for a good purpose, to Racer, to protect him. Wasn’t it more important for Rydag to be wrapped in something that had come from the Clan, when he was sent on his way to walk in the spirit world, than for her to carry Durc’s cloak around? Crozie had finally let the memory of her son go. Maybe it was time for her to let Durc go, too, and just be grateful that he was more than a memory.

“I have something to wrap him in,” Ayla said. She rushed to her sleeping place and from the bottom of a pile, she pulled out a folded hide and shook it out. She held the soft, supple, old leather of her son’s cloak to her cheek once more, and closed her eyes, remembering. Then she walked back and gave it to Rydag’s mother.

“Here’s a wrapping,” she told Nezzie, “a Clan wrapping. It once belonged to my son. Now it will help Rydag in the spirit world. And thank you, Crozie,” she added.

“Why are you thanking me?”

“For everything you’ve done for me, and for showing me that all mothers must let go sometime.”

“Hmmmf!” the old woman said, trying to look stern, but her eyes glistened with feeli

ng. Nezzie took the cloak from Ayla and covered Rydag.

By then it was dark. Ayla had planned to do a simple ceremony inside the tent, but Nezzie asked her to wait until morning and conduct the ceremony outside, to show everyone at the Meeting Rydag’s humanity. It would also give the hunters a little more time to return. No one wanted Talut and Ranec to miss Rydag’s funeral, but they could not wait too long.

Late the next morning they carried the body outside and laid it out on the cloak. Many people from the Meeting had gathered around, and more were coming. Word had spread that Ayla was going to give Rydag a flathead burial, and everyone was curious. She had the small bowl of red ochre paste and the amulet, and had begun calling the Spirits to attend, as Creb had always done, when another commotion arose. Much to Nezzie’s relief, the hunters returned, and with all of the mammoth meat. They had taken turns dragging back the two travois, and were already planning variations of it to make a sledge that people could drag more easily.

The ceremony was postponed until the mammoth meat was stored, and Talut and Ranec were told what had happened, but no one objected when it was resumed quickly. The death of the mixed Clan child at the Summer Meeting of the Mamutoi had created a real dilemma. He had been called an abomination, an animal, but animals were not buried; their meat was stored. Only people were buried, and they did not like to leave the dead unburied for long. Though the Mamutoi weren’t quite willing to grant Rydag human status, they knew he wasn’t really an animal, either. No one revered the spirit of flatheads as they did deer, or bison, or mammoths, and no one was ready to store Rydag’s body beside the mammoth carcasses. He was an abomination precisely because they saw his humanity, but degraded it and would not recognize it. They were glad to let Ayla and the Lion Camp dispose of Rydag’s body in a way that seemed to resolve the problem.

Ayla stood up on a mound to begin the ceremony again, trying to remember the signs Creb had made for this part. She didn’t know exactly what all the signs meant, they were taught only to mog-urs, but she did know the general purpose and content, and explained as she went along for the benefit of the Lion Camp, and the rest of the Mamutoi who were watching.

“I am Calling the Spirits now,” she said. “The Spirit of the Great Cave Bear, the Cave Lion, the Mammoth, all the others, and the Ancient Spirits, too, of Wind and Mist and Rain.” Then she reached down for the small bowl. “Now I’m going to name him and make him part of the Clan,” she said, and dipping her finger in the red paste, Ayla drew a line from his forehead to his nose. Then she stood up and said with signs and words, “The boy’s name is Rydag.”

There was a quality about her, the tone of her voice, the intensity of her expression as she tried to remember exactly the correct signs and movements, even her strange, speech mannerism, that held people fascinated. The story of her standing on the ice Calling the mammoths was spreading fast. No one doubted that this daughter of the Mammoth Hearth had every right to conduct this ceremony, or any ceremony, whether she had a Mamut tattoo or not.

“Now he is named in the Clan way,” Ayla explained, “but he also needs a totem to help him find the world of the spirits. I do not know his totem, so I will share my totem, the Spirit of the Cave Lion, with him. It is a very powerful, protective totem, but he is worthy.”

Next, she exposed Rydag’s small, thin, right leg, and with the red ochre paste, drew four parallel lines on his thigh. Then she stood and announced in words and signs, “Spirit of Cave Lion, the boy, Rydag, is delivered into your protection.” Then she slipped the amulet, tied to a cord, around his neck. “Rydag is now named and accepted by the Clan,” she said, and fervently hoped it was true.

Ayla had chosen a place, somewhat away from the settlement, and Lion Camp had requested and received permission from Wolf Camp to bury him there. Nezzie wrapped the small stiff body in Durc’s cloak, then Talut picked up the boy and carried him to the place of burial. He was not ashamed of the tears that fell as he laid Rydag in the shallow grave.

The people of the Lion Clan stood around the dip in the ground that had been deepened only slightly, and watched as several things were put into the grave with him. Nezzie brought food and placed it beside him. Latie added his favorite little whistle. Tronie brought a string of bones, and deer vertebrae that he had used when he tended the babies and young children of Lion Camp during the past winter. It was what he loved doing most, because it was something useful he could do. Then, unexpectedly, Rugie ran to the grave and dropped in her favorite doll.

At Ayla’s signal, everyone from Lion Camp picked up a stone and carefully laid it on the cloak-wrapped figure; the beginning of his grave cairn. It was then that Ayla began the burial ceremony. She didn’t try to explain, the purpose seemed clear enough. Using the same signs that Creb had used at Iza’s funeral, and that she, in turn, had used to honor Creb when she found him in the rubble-strewn cave, Ayla’s movements gave meaning to a burial rite that was far more ancient than any there could know, and more beautiful than anyone had imagined.

She was not using the simplified sign language that she had taught to the Lion Camp. This was the full, complex, rich Clan language in which movements and postures of the entire body had shades and nuances of meaning. Though many of the signs were esoteric—even Ayla didn’t know the full meaning—many ordinary signs were also included, some of which the Lion Camp did know. They were able to understand the essence, know that it was a ritual for sending someone to a world beyond. To the rest of the Mamutoi, Ayla’s movement had the appearance of a subtle, yet expressive dance, full of hand movements, and arm movements, stances and gestures. She evoked in them with her silent grace, the love and the loss, the sorrow and the mythic hope of death.

Jondalar was overwhelmed. His tears flowed as freely as any member of the Lion Camp’s. As he watched her beautiful silent dance, he was reminded of a time in her valley—it seemed so long ago now—when she once had tried to tell him something with the same kind of graceful movements. Even then, though he didn’t understand it was a language, he had sensed some deeper meaning in her expressive gestures. Now that he knew more, he was surprised at how much he didn’t know, yet how beautiful he thought it was when Ayla moved that way.