The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [170]
Wolf ran on ahead into some of more inaccessible parts of the cave. He came back carrying something in his mouth and dropped it at Ayla’s feet. “What is this?” she said as she bent to pick it up. All three of them focused their lamps on the object. “Zelandoni, this looks like a piece of a skull!” Ayla said. “And here is another piece, a part of a jaw. It’s small. I think this may have been a woman. Where did he find these, I wonder?”
Zelandoni took them and held them in the light from the lamp. “There may have been a burial in here, long ago. People have lived near here for as long as anyone can remember.” She saw Jondalar make an involuntary shudder. He preferred to leave things of the spirit world to the zelandonia, and she knew it.
Jondalar had helped with burials when he was required to do so, but he hated the duty. Usually when men returned from digging burial holes, or other activities that brought them dangerously close to the spirit world, they went to the cave called the Men’s Place, on a highland across Grass River from the Third Cave, to be scrubbed and purified. Again, women were not prohibited from the Men’s Place, but like a fa’lodge, it was mostly male activities that took place, and few women, outside of the zelandonia, went there.
“The spirit is long gone from these,” she said. “The elan found its way to the world of the spirits so long ago that only pieces of bone are left. There may be more.”
“Do you know why someone was buried in here, Zelandoni?” Jondalar asked.
“It is not what we usually do, but I am sure this person was put in this Sacred Place for a reason. I don’t know why the Mother decided to let the wolf show them to us, but I will put these back farther on. I think it is best to return them to Her.”
The One Who Was First went ahead into the twisting darkness of the cave. They watched her light weaving ahead, then disappear. Not long after, it reappeared, and soon they saw the woman returning. “I think it’s time to go back,” she said.
Ayla was glad to be leaving the cave. Besides being dark, the caves were always damp and chilly once you moved past the opening, and this one felt close and confined, but maybe it was just that she’d had her fill of caves for a while. She just wanted to go home.
When they arrived at the Ninth Cave, they found that more people had come home from the Summer Meeting, though some were planning to leave again soon. They had brought with them a young man who was smiling shyly at a woman seated near him. His hair was light brown and his eyes were gray. Ayla recognized Matagan, the young man of the Fifth Cave who had been gored in the leg by a woolly rhinoceros the year before.
Ayla and Jondalar had been returning from their period of isolation after their Matrimonial when they saw several young men—inexperienced boys, really—who were baiting a huge, full-grown rhino. The youngsters had been sharing one of the bachelor fa’lodges, some for the first time, and were full of themselves, sure they would live forever. When they saw the woolly rhinoceros, they decided to hunt it themselves without going to find an older, more experienced hunter. They were thinking only of the praise and glory they would get when the people at the Summer Meeting saw their kill.
They were really quite young; some had barely gained hunter status, and only one of them had even seen hunters baiting a rhino, though they had all heard of the technique. They didn’t know how deceptively quick the huge creature could be, or how important