The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [167]
As the darkened lodge quieted again, Mamut held his hand up, palm backward, facing him. “Will the woman, Ayla, step forward?”
Ayla’s stomach churned and her knees felt weak as she approached the old man.
“Do you wish to be one with the Mamutoi?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Will you honor Mut, the Great Mother, revere all Her Spirits and, especially, never offend the Spirit of the Mammoth; will you strive to be worthy of the Mamutoi, to bring honor to the Lion Camp, and always respect Mamut and the meaning of the Mammoth Hearth?”
“Yes.” She could hardly say more. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do to accomplish all of it, but she would certainly try.
“Does this Camp accept this woman?” Mamut said to the assembly.
“We accept her,” they replied in unison.
“Are there any here that reject her?”
There was a long pause, and Ayla wasn’t at all sure that Frebec wouldn’t speak out in objection, but none replied.
“Talut, headman of the Lion Camp, will you inscribe the mark?” Mamut intoned.
As Ayla saw Talut withdraw his knife from the sheath, her heart beat fast. This was unexpected. She didn’t know what he was going to do with the knife, but whatever it was, she was sure she wouldn’t like it. The big headman took Ayla’s arm, pushed up her sleeve, and poised the flint knife, then quickly cut a straight mark on her upper arm, drawing blood. Ayla felt the pain, but she didn’t flinch. With the blood still wet on the knife, Talut incised a straight mark on the piece of ivory hanging as a plaque around his neck, held by Mamut, making a red-stained gouge. Then Mamut said some words Ayla did not understand. She didn’t realize no one else understood them either.
“Ayla is now counted among the people of the Lion Camp, numbered among the Mammoth Hunters,” Talut said. “This woman is and will forever be Ayla of the Mamutoi.”
Mamut picked up a small bowl and poured stinging liquid on the cut on her arm—she realized it was an antiseptic cleansing solution—then he turned her around to face the group. “Welcome Ayla of the Mamutoi, member of the Lion Camp, daughter of the Mammoth Hearth.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Chosen of the Spirit of the Great Cave Lion.”
The group repeated the words, and Ayla realized it was the second time in her life that she had been taken in, accepted, and made a member of a people whose ways she hardly knew. She closed her eyes, hearing the words echo in her mind. Then it struck her. Mamut had included her totem! Even though she was not Ayla of the Clan, she had not lost her totem! She was still under the protection of the Cave Lion. But even more, she was not Ayla of No People; she was Ayla of the Mamutoi!
18
“You may always claim the sanctuary of the Mammoth Hearth, Ayla, wherever you are. Please accept this token, daughter of my hearth,” Mamut said as he removed a circlet of ivory carved with zigzag lines from his arm and tied the pierced ends together on Ayla’s arm, just below her cut. Then he gave her a warm embrace.
Ayla had tears in her eyes when she went to the bed platform where her gifts were laid out, but she wiped them away before she picked up a wooden bowl. It was round, strong, but of uniformly fine thinness. The bowl boasted neither painted nor carved design, only a subtle pattern of the wood grain, but that was symmetrically balanced.
“Please accept gift of medicine bowl from daughter of hearth, Mamut,” Ayla said. “And if you allow, daughter of hearth will fill bowl every day with medicine for aching joints, of fingers and arms and knees.”
“Ah, I would welcome some relief from my arthritis this winter,” he said with a smile, taking the bowl and passing it to Talut, who looked it over, nodded, and passed it to Tulie.
Tulie examined it critically, at first judging it to be simplistic because it lacked the