The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [92]
Although he wasn’t shouting, Ayla noticed that the storyteller’s voice could be heard very well by the entire audience. He had a special way of speaking that was powerful, clear, and expressive. It made her think of her visit to the cave with the Zelandoni of the Twenty-sixth and his acolyte and the sounds the three of them had made in front of the cave before crawling in. It occurred to her that Galliadal could have become one of the zelandonia, if he wished.
“Though they were old enough, none of the young people were mated yet. Their Cave was small and they were closely related to most of the people near their age. The mother was beginning to worry that they would have to go far away to find mates, and she might not see them again. She had heard of an old Zelandoni who lived alone in a cave some distance up the river to the north. Some people talked in whispers about her, saying she could make things happen, but she might exact a payment that would be hard to make. The mother decided to go and find her,” the storyteller said.
“One day after she returned, the woman sent her children out to the edge of a stream to collect cattail roots. When they arrived they met three other young people, a girl about the age of Kimacal, a boy about the age of Karella, and a girl about the age of Wolafon.”
This time the first young man on the platform smiled coquettishly when the older girl was mentioned, the young woman took a bravado stance, and the other young man assumed the posture of a shy young girl. There was laughter from the audience. When Ayla and Jondalar looked at each other, both were smiling.
“The three newcomers were strangers who had recently arrived from the land to the south. As all of them had been taught was appropriate, they greeted each other and introduced themselves, reciting their important names and ties.
“ ‘We have come looking for food,’ the eldest visitor explained.” Galliadal changed the timbre of his voice when he spoke as the young woman.
“ ‘There are many cattails here; we can share them,’ Karella said.” The young woman mouthed the words Galliadal spoke, again changing his tone. “They all started pulling cattail roots out of the soft mud by the edge of the stream, Kimacal helping the older foreign girl, Karella showing the middle boy where to dig, and Wolafon pulling out some roots for the shy younger girl, but the fair young woman wouldn’t accept them. Wolafon could see that his brother and sister were enjoying the company of their pleasurable new friends, becoming very friendly.”
The laughter was now quite loud. Not only were the innuendos obvious, the young man portraying the older brother and the young woman on the platform were in an exaggerated embrace, while the younger brother looked on with envy. When Galliadal narrated, he changed his voice for each character as he spoke for them, while the others on the raised platform demonstrated, often very dramatically.
“ ‘These are good cattails. Why won’t you eat them?’ Wolafon asked the appealing stranger, ‘I cannot eat cattails,’ the young woman said. ‘I can only eat meat.’ ” When he spoke as the woman, he pitched his voice quite high.
“Wolafon didn’t know what to do. ‘Maybe I can hunt for some meat for you,’ he said, but he knew he wasn’t a very good hunter. He usually went along on game drives. He meant well, but he was a little lazy and never tried very hard to hunt himself. He went back to the home of his mother’s Cave.
“ ‘Kimacal and Karella shared cattails with a woman and man from the south,’ he told his mother. ‘They have found mates, but the woman I want can’t eat cattails. She can only eat meat, and I’m not a very good hunter. How can I find food for her?’ ” Galliadal related.
Ayla wondered if “sharing cattails” had some second meaning that she wasn’t familiar with, like a joke she didn’t understand, since the storyteller went from eating cattails together to being mated in the next breath.
“ ‘There is an old Zelandoni who lives alone in a cave north of here near the river,’ his mother