The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [279]
Trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible, he stayed hidden and watched. He couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t even make himself look away, even though he soon realized she was preparing herself for the coming ritual, thinking she was alone. At first, he was just overwhelmed by her presence, then he became fascinated. It was as though he had to watch.
* * *
Ayla quickly started a fire with a firestone and a piece of flint, and put in cooking stones to heat. She wanted to make her purification ritual as close as possible to the way it was done in the Clan, but some changes could not be helped. She had considered making fire in the Clan way, by twirling a dry stick between her palms against a flat piece of wood until it created a hot ember. But in the Clan, women were not supposed to carry fire, or make it for ritual purposes in any case, and she decided if she was going to break with tradition enough to make her own fire, she might as well use her firestone.
Women were, however, allowed to make knives and other stone tools, so long as the tools weren’t used for hunting weapons or to make them. She had decided she needed a new amulet pouch. The decorated Mamutoi bag she now used would not be appropriate for a Clan ritual. To make a proper Clan amulet pouch, she felt she needed a Clan knife, which was why she had asked Wymez for an unbroken nodule of flint. She searched near the waters and found a river-rounded, fist-sized pebble to use as a hammerstone. With it, she knocked off the outer chalky-gray cortex of the small nodule of flint, in the process beginning to preshape it. She hadn’t made her own tools for some time, but she hadn’t forgotten the technique, and soon became involved in her task.
When she finished, the dark gray glossy stone had the shape of a roughly oval cylinder with a flattened top. She examined it, knocked off another sliver, then took careful aim and knocked a chip from the edge of the flat top at the narrow end of the oval to make a striking platform. Turning the stone to position it at just the right angle, she struck at the place she had nicked out. A rather thick flake fell away, having the same shape as the preformed oval top, and an edge that was razor sharp.
Though she used only the hammerstone, and did it with the ease and quickness of experience, she had made a perfectly serviceable, very sharp knife, which had required careful and precise control, but she had no intention of keeping it. It was a knife meant to be held in the hand, not hafted, and with all the fine blade-type tools she now had, most of them with handles, she had no need for a Clan knife, except for this special use. Without pausing to blunt the extremely sharp edge, to make it easier and safer to hold, Ayla cut a long thin strip from the edge of the buckskin she brought with her, and slashed off an end, out of which she cut a small circle. Then she picked up the hammerstone again. After carefully knocking a couple of pieces of the flint away, the knife now was an awl with a sharp point. She used it to poke holes all the way around the circle of leather, and then threaded the leather lace through them.
She removed the decorated pouch from around her neck, undid the knot, and poured her sacred objects, the signs from her totem, into her hand. She studied them for a moment, then clutched them to her breast, before putting them into the new, simpler, Clan-style pouch and pulling the lace tight. She had made a decision to stay with the Mamutoi and join with Ranec, but somehow she didn’t expect to find a sign from her Cave Lion confirming that it was the right decision.
With the amulet finished, she went to the creek and dipped water into the cooking basket, and added the hot stones from the fire. It was too early in the year to find lathering soaproot, and the countryside was too open for horsetail fern, which grew in shady