The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [340]
Her memory of being chosen and marked by her Cave Lion Totem had never been so clear and intense before. Reflexively, she reached for her left thigh to feel the different texture of the skin of the four parallel scars. They were recognized as Clan totem marks when she was accepted into Brun’s clan, though traditionally a Cave Lion Totem chose male, not female.
How many marks had been carved into her body in her life? Besides the four marks of her protective totem spirit, Mog-ur had nicked the base of her throat to draw blood when she became the Woman Who Hunts. She was given her Clan hunting talisman, the red-stained oval of mammoth ivory, to show that in spite of the fact that she was a woman, she was accepted as a hunter of the Clan, though only allowed to use a sling.
She no longer carried the talisman with her, or her amulet with the rest of her signs either, though at that moment, she wished she had them. They were hidden behind the carved, woman-shaped donii figure in the niche that had been dug out of the limestone wall of her dwelling at the Ninth Cave. But she did have the scar.
Ayla touched the small mark, then reached for the scar on her arm. Talut had cut that mark, and with the bloody knife had notched an ivory plaque that he wore suspended from a fantastic necklace of amber and cave lion canine teeth and claws, to show that she was accepted into the Lion Camp, adopted by the Mamutoi.
She had never asked, she had always been chosen, and for each acceptance she bore a mark, a scar that she would carry always. It was the sacrifice she’d had to make. Now she was being chosen again. She could still decline, but if she didn’t refuse now, she was committed for life. It crossed her mind that the scars would always remind her that there were consequences to being chosen, responsibilities that came with acceptance.
She looked into the eyes of the woman. “I accept, I will be Zelandoni,” Ayla said, trying to sound firm and positive.
Then she closed her eyes and felt someone come up behind the stool on which she was seated. Hands, gentle but firm, pulled her back to rest on the soft body of a woman for support, then held her head and turned it so that her right forehead was presented. She felt a wash of liquid from something soft and wet wiped across her forehead, recognized the odor of iris root, a solution she had often used to clean wounds, and felt an anxious tension arise within her.
“Oh! Ow!” she cried out involuntarily as she felt the quick cut of a sharp blade, then fought to control such outbursts at a second cut, and then a third. The solution was applied again, then the cuts were dried, and another substance was rubbed in. This time the pain stung like a burn, but not for long; something in the stinging salve had numbed the pain.
“You can open your eyes, Ayla. It’s over,” the large woman said.
Ayla opened her eyes to see a rather dim, unfamiliar image. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Someone was holding up a reflector and a lighted lamp so she could see herself in the oiled piece of sand-smoothed, black-stained wood. She seldom used a reflector, didn’t even have one in her dwelling, and was always surprised to see her own face. Then her eyes were drawn to the marks on her forehead.
Just in front of her right temple was a short horizontal line with two vertical lines extending up from each end of about the same length, like a square with no top line or an open box. The three lines were black, with a little blood still oozing out around the edges. They looked so conspicuous, they seemed to diminish everything else. Ayla wasn’t at all sure that she liked having her face marred like that. But there was nothing she could do about it now. It was done. She would carry those black marks on her face for the rest of her life.
She started to reach up to feel it, but the First stopped her. “It’s best if you don’t touch it just yet,” she said. “It has almost