The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [395]
Trees that had been felled and broken for firewood often produced large splinters that could be quickly trimmed and smoothed into plates and dishes; shoulder and pelvic bones from various deer, bison, and aurochs were roughly shaped to a reasonable size for the same purpose. The tusks of mammoths could be chipped off, much like flint, but making much larger flakes that were used for plates as well.
Mammoth ivory could even be preshaped by cutting a circular groove first with a burin chisel. Then, using a solid endpiece of antler or horn with the pointed tip held at just the right angle in the groove of the circle, and with practice and a bit of luck, a blow from a hammerstone on the back of it would detach an ivory flake with the precut shape. But that much work was usually done only for objects meant to be given as gifts or for other special purposes. Such preshaped flakes of ivory with smooth, slightly rounded outside surfaces could be used for more than dishes. Decorative images could be etched on them.
“Thank you, Marthona, but I have to get some things and go to see Zelandoni,” Ayla said. Suddenly she stopped and hunkered down in front of the older woman, who was sitting on a small stool woven together out of reeds, cattail leaves, and flexible branches. “I really do want to thank you, for being so kind to me since the first day I arrived. I don’t remember my own mother, only Iza, the Clan woman who raised me, but I like to think that my real mother would have been like you.”
“I think of you as a daughter, Ayla,” Marthona said, more moved than she would have expected. “My son was lucky to find you”; then she shook her head slightly. “Sometimes I wish he were more like you.”
Ayla hugged her, then turned to Proleva. “Thank you, too, Proleva. You’ve been such a good friend to me, and I appreciate, more than I can say, the way you’ve taken care of Jonayla when I had to stay back at the Ninth Cave, and when I’ve been busy here.” She hugged Proleva too. “I wish Folara were here, but I know she’s busy with the preparations for her Matrimonial. I think Aldanor is a good man. I’m so happy for her. I have to go now,” she said suddenly, hugged her daughter again, then hurried to the dwelling, misty-eyed with the tears she was holding back.
“I wonder what that was all about,” Proleva said.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think she almost sounded like she was saying good-bye,” Marthona said.
“Is mother going someplace, ’Thona?” Jonayla asked.
“I don’t think so. At least no one has said anything to me.”
Ayla stayed in the summer dwelling for a while making preparations. First she cut out a roughly circular shape from the belly of the skin of the red deer she had brought with her to the Summer Meeting. She had found the soft buckskin hide the day before folded up on her sleeping roll. When she asked Jonayla who had cured the deer skin, she was told, “Everybody did.”
Cordage, fibrous rope, twine, thread, tough sinew, and strips of leather thong, in various sizes, were always useful and easy to make without having to think about it, once the techniques were learned. Most people busied themselves making things when they were sitting around talking or listening to stories, out of materials that were collected whenever they were found. So there was always some cordage around for anyone to use. Ayla got some strips of leather thong and a long piece of thin, flexible rope that were hanging on pegs pounded into posts near the entrance. After she had cut off the belly part into a circular shape, she folded the rest of the hide, then coiled up the rope and put it on top. She measured out a length of the leather thong around her neck, added additional length, then threaded it through the holes she cut around the edge of the leather circle.
She seldom wore her amulet anymore, not even her more modern one. Most Zelandonii wore necklaces, and it was hard to wear a lumpy leather pouch and a necklace at the same time. Instead, she