The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [276]
“Some time soon, you will want to find a place for your personal communion with Mut. Pay attention to your dreams. They will help you find the right place. Before you visit your personal shrine, you will have to fast, and purify yourself, always acknowledge the four directions and the underworld and sky, and make offerings and sacrifices to Her, particularly if you want Her help, or a blessing from Her. It’s especially important when the time comes that you want to have a child, Latie, or when you learn you are going to have one. Then you must go to your personal shrine and burn a sacrifice to Her, a gift that will go up to Her in the smoke.”
“How will I know what to give Her?” Latie asked.
“It could be something you find or something you make. You will know if it feels right. You will always know.”
“When you want a special man, you can ask Her, too,” Deegie said, with a conspiratorial smile. “I can’t tell you how many times I asked for Branag.”
Ayla glanced at Deegie, and resolved to find out more about personal shrines.
“There is so much to learn!” Latie said.
“Your mother can help you, and Tulie, too,” Mamut said.
“Nezzie has asked me and I’ve agreed to be a Watching Woman this year, Latie,” Tulie mentioned.
“Oh, Tulie! I’m so glad,” Latie said. “Then I won’t feel so alone.”
“Well,” the headwoman said, smiling at the girl’s eager welcome, “it’s not every year that the Lion Camp has a new woman.”
Latie frowned with concentration, then asked in a soft voice, “Tulie, what is it like? In the tent, I mean. That night.”
Tulie looked at Nezzie, and smiled. “Are you a little worried about it?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Don’t worry. It will all be explained to you, you’ll know what to expect.”
“Is it anything like the way Druwez and I played when we were children? He would bounce on me so hard … I think he was trying to be Talut.”
“Not really, Latie. Those were children’s games, you were only playing, trying to be grown up. You were both very young then, too young.”
“That’s true, we were very young,” Latie said, feeling very much older now. “Those are games for little children. We stopped playing like that a long time ago. In fact, we don’t play anything any more. Lately, neither Danug nor Druwez will even talk to me very much.”
“They will want to talk to you,” Tulie said. “I am sure of it, but remember, you must not talk to them very much, now, and not ever be alone with them.”
Ayla reached for the large waterbag that was hanging by a leather strap from a peg pounded into one of the supporting posts. It was made from the stomach of a giant deer, a megaceros, which had been cured to maintain its naturally watertight character. It was filled through the lower opening, which was folded over and closed off. A short piece of a foreleg bone with a natural hollow in the middle had been grooved all the way around near one end. To form a pouring spout, the skin of the opening of the deer stomach was tied to the bone by wrapping a cord tightly around it at the groove.
Ayla pulled out the stopper—a thin strip of leather that had been passed up through the hollow and knotted in one place several times—poured water into the watertight basket she used for making her special morning tea, and pushed the leather knot back into the pouring spout to close it off. The red-hot cooking stone sputtered as she dropped it into the water. She stirred it around a few times to draw off as much heat from the stone as possible, then fished it out with two flat sticks, and put it back in the fire. With the damp sticks, she picked up another hot stone and dropped it into the water. When the water was simmering, she dropped in a measured amount of a mixture of dried leaves, roots, and particularly the fine vinelike stems of golden thread and left it to steep.
She had been especially careful to remember to take Iza’s secret medicine. She hoped the powerful magic would work for her as well as it had worked for Iza for so many years. She did not want a baby now. She was too unsure.
After she dressed, she poured the tisane into her