The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [228]
The first morning light found the cave empty. The women were already up working by firelight, and the rest couldn’t sleep. The preliminary preparations for the feast had consumed days, but the work was nothing compared with the task ahead. Full daylight was upon them long before the glowing disc burst over the tops of the mountains, flooding the cave site with burning rays from a sun already high.
Excitement was tangible, tension unbearable. With the competitions over, the men had nothing to do until the ceremonies, and they were restless. Their nervous agitation infected the older boys, and they in turn stirred up the rest of the youngsters, driving the busy women to distraction; milling men and chasing children all got in their way.
The turbulence subsided temporarily when the women served cakes of crashed millet mixed with water and baked on hot stones. The breakfast of bland biscuits was eaten with solemnity. They were reserved for this one day alone out of every seven years, and, except for nursing babies, were the only food anyone would eat until the feast. The millet cakes were a token only and did little more than whet the appetite. By midmorning, hunger, stimulated by delicious smells emanating from various fires, intensified the turmoil, raising excited anticipation to a fever pitch as the time for the Bear Ceremony drew near.
Creb had not approached either Ayla or Uba with instructions to prepare themselves for the ritual that would be held later, and they were sure the mog-urs had found neither of them acceptable. They were not alone in wishing Iza had been well enough to make the journey. Creb had used every power of persuasion at his command to convince the other magicians to let one of them make the drink, but as much as they wanted the ritual and, for them, the rare experience of the drink made from the roots, Ayla was too strange and Uba too young. The mog-urs refused to accept Ayla as a woman of the Clan, much less a medicine woman of Iza’s line. The celebration of Ursus affected more than the clans that were in attendance; the consequences, good or bad, of any rituals performed at any Clan Gathering redounded to the entire Clan. The mog-urs would not chance the possibility of invoking bad luck that would cast misfortune on all Clan people everywhere. The stakes were too high.
Eliminating that traditional ritual of the ceremony contributed to the devaluation of Brun and his clan. For all the efforts of his men in the competitions, Brun’s acceptance of Ayla posed more threat to the clan’s position than anything ever had before. It was too unconventional. Only Brun’s adamant stand in the face of increasing opposition kept the issue undecided, and he wasn’t at all sure he would win out in the end.
Not long after the millet cakes were served, the leaders arranged themselves near the mouth of the cave. They waited quietly for the attention of the assembled clans. The silence spread out like the ripples of a stone cast in a pond as the presence of the leaders was made known. Men moved quickly into positions defined by clan and personal rank. The women dropped their work, signaled suddenly well-behaved children, and silently followed suit. The Bear Ceremony was about to begin.
The first beat of the smooth hard stick on the hollowed-out wooden bowl-shaped drum resounded like a sharp crack of thunder in the expectant hush. The slow, stately rhythm was picked up by the stamping of wooden spears against the ground, adding a muted depth. A contrapuntal rhythm of sticks beating on a long, hollow, wooden tube wove around the strong steady beat in a seemingly random pattern of sound, apparently independent from it. Yet the staccato rhythms, played at varying tempos, had a stressed beat that coincided with every fifth thrum of the basic rhythm as if by accident. They combined to produce an increasing sense of expectation, almost of anxiety, until the beats