The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [82]
When Ayla decided to return home with Jondalar instead of staying to mate Ranec, though Nezzie knew how much Ayla’s leaving hurt the nephew she had raised, she gave the young woman the beautiful garments that had been made for her, and told her to wear them when she mated Jondalar. Ayla didn’t quite realize how much wealth and status the Matrimonial clothing conveyed, but Nezzie did and so did Mamut, the perceptive old spiritual leader. They had guessed from his bearing and manner that Jondalar came from people of high status, and that Ayla would need something to give her a good standing among them.
Though Ayla didn’t quite understand how much status her Matrimonial outfit displayed, she did understand the quality of the workmanship. The hides for the tunic and leggings had come from both deer and saiga antelope and were an earthy, golden yellow, almost the color of her hair. Part of the color was the result of the types of wood that were used to smoke the hides to keep them supple, and part the result of the mixtures of yellow and red ochers that were added. It had required a great deal of effort to scrape the skins to make them soft and pliable, but rather than being left with the velvety suede-like finish of buckskin, the leather had been burnished, rubbed with the ochers mixed with fat using an ivory smoothing tool that compacted the hide to a lustrous, shiny finish that made the soft leather almost waterproof.
The long tunic, sewn together with fine stitches, fell to a downward-pointing triangle at the back. It opened down the front with the sections below the hips tapering so that when it was brought together, another downward-pointing triangle was created. The full leggings were close fitting except around the ankle, where they could bunch softly or be brought down below the heel, depending on the footwear that was chosen. But the quality of the basic construction only laid the groundwork for the extraordinary outfit. The effort that went into the decoration made it an exquisite creation of rare beauty and value.
The tunic and lower part of the leggings were covered with elaborate geometric designs made primarily of ivory beads, some sections solidly filled in. Colored embroideries added definition to the geometric beaded pattern. They began with downward-pointing triangles, which horizontally became zigzags and vertically took on the shapes of diamonds and chevrons, then evolved into complex figures such as rectangular spirals and concentric rhomboids. The ivory beads were highlighted and accentuated by amber beads, some lighter and some darker than the color of the leather, but of the same tone. More than five thousand ivory beads made from mammoth tusks were sewn onto the garments, each bead carved, pierced, and polished by hand.
A finger-woven sash in similar geometric patterns was used to tie the tunic closed at the waist. Both the embroidery and the belt were made of yarns whose natural color needed no additional dyeing: deep red woolly mammoth hair, ivory mouflon wool, brown musk-ox underdown, and deep reddish-black woolly rhinoceros long hair. The fibers were prized for more than their colors; they all came from animals that were difficult and dangerous to hunt.
The workmanship of the entire outfit was superb in every detail; it was evident to knowledgeable Zelandonii that someone had acquired