The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [282]
With the chilling wind of evening, the Camp took their warm feelings inside and closed the heavy insulating drapes behind them. There was a time of settling down, of changing to their ceremonial clothes or adding the final decorative pieces, of refilling cups with a favorite beverage, a brisk herbal tea, or Talut’s bouza. Then they all found their way to the Mammoth Hearth for the serious part of the Spring Festival.
Ayla and Deegie beckoned to Latie to invite her to sit with them; she was almost one of them now, almost a young woman. Danug and Druwez looked at her with unaccustomed shyness as she passed. She straightened her shoulders and held her head high, but refrained from speaking. Their eyes followed after her. Latie smiled as she sat between the two women, feeling very special, and very much that she belonged.
Latie had been playmate and friend to the boys when they were children, but she was not a child any more, nor a girl to be ignored or disdained by young males. She had passed into the magically attractive, slightly threatening, and altogether mysterious world of woman. Her body had changed its shape, and she could cause unexpected, uncontrollable feelings and responses in their bodies just by walking by. Even a direct look could be disconcerting.
But more daunting was something they had only heard about. She could make blood come out of her body with no wound and seemingly no pain, and somehow that made her able to draw the magic of the Mother into herself. They didn’t know how, they only knew that one day she would bring forth new life from inside her body; one day Latie would make children. But first a man would have to make her a woman. That would be their role—not with Latie, of course, she was sibling and cousin, too closely related. But someday, when they were older and had more experience, they might be selected to perform that important function because even though she could make blood, a female could not make children until a man made her a woman.
The coming Summer Meeting would prove enlightening for the two young men, also, particularly Danug, since he was older. They were never pushed, but when they were ready, there would be women who had dedicated themselves to honor the Mother for a season, who would make themselves available to young men, to give them experience, and to teach them the ways and the mysterious joys of women.
Tulie walked to the center of the group, holding up and shaking the Speaking Staff, and waited for the people to quiet down. When she had everyone’s attention, she gave the decorated ivory shaft to Talut, who was in full regalia, including his mammoth tusk headpiece. Mamut appeared, dressed in an ornately decorated white leather cape. He held a cunningly fashioned shaft of wood that seemed to be a single piece, except that one end was a dry, bare, dead branch, and the other end bursting with green buds and small new leaves. He gave it to Tulie. As headwoman, the Spring Festival was hers to open. Spring was the women’s time of year; the time of birth and new life, the time of new beginnings. She held the double-ended shaft in both hands, over her head, pausing for full effect, then brought it down sharply across her knee, breaking it in two, symbolizing the end of the old and the beginning of the new year, and the start of the ceremonial part of the evening.
“The Mother has smiled upon us with great favor this past cycle,” Tulie began. “We have so much to celebrate it will be difficult to know which significant event to use to mark the counting of the year. Ayla was adopted as a Mamutoi, so we have a new woman, and the Mother has chosen to make Latie ready for womanhood, so we soon will have another.” Ayla was surprised to hear herself included. “We have a new baby girl to be named and numbered among