The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [294]
Though fresh vegetables—carbohydrates—were enthusiastically added to their diet, for all the rich variety available to them, the Mamutoi hunted little in spring and early summer, unless stored supplies of meat were very low. The animals were too lean. The deep, hard winter sapped them of the required concentrated sources of energy in the form of fat. Their perambulations were driven by the need to replenish. A few male bison were picked off, if the fur at the nape of the neck was still black, indicating fat still present in some measure, and a few pregnant females of several species, for the tender fetus meat and skin which made soft baby clothes, or undergarments. The major exception was reindeer.
Vast herds of reindeer migrated north, the antlered females with the last year’s young leading the way along remembered trails to their traditional calving grounds, followed by the males. As with other herding animals, their ranks were thinned by wolves that ranged along their flanks searching out the weak and the old, and by several species of felines: large lynxes, long-bodied leopards, and an occasional massive cave lion. The large carnivores played host with their leavings to a great variety of secondary carnivores and scavengers, both four-legged and flying: foxes, hyenas, brown bears, civets, small steppe cats, wolverines, weasels, ravens, kites, hawks, and many more.
The two-legged hunters preyed on them all. The fur and feathers of their hunting competitors were not disdained, though reindeer were the primary game of the Lion Camp—not for the meat, although it did not go to waste. The tongue was considered a treat and much of the meat was dried for use in traveling food, but it was the hides they wanted. Commonly grayish-fawn, but ranging in color from creamy white to almost black, with a reddish-brown cast in the young, the coat of the most northern ranging deer was both lightweight and warm. Because their fur was naturally insulating, no finer cold-weather clothing could be found than that made from reindeer hide, and it was without equal for bedding and ground sheets. With surrounds and pit traps, the Lion Camp hunted them every year, to replenish their own supplies and for gifts to take with them when they set out on their own summer migrations.
As the Lion Camp prepared for the Summer Meeting, excitement ran high. At least once every day, someone told Ayla how much she would like meeting some relative or friend, or how much they would want to meet her. The only one who seemed to lack enthusiasm for the gathering of the Camps was Rydag. Ayla had never seen the boy in such low spirits, and she worried about his health.
She watched him carefully for several days, and one unusually warm afternoon when he was outside watching several people stretching reindeer hides, she sat down beside him.
“I have made new medicine for you, Rydag, to take to the Summer Meeting,” Ayla said. “It is fresher, and may be stronger. You will have to tell me if you feel any differences, better or worse,” she said, using both hand signs and words, as she usually did with him. “How are you feeling now? Any changes lately?”
Rydag liked it when Ayla talked to him. Though he was profoundly grateful for his new ability to communicate with his Camp, their understanding and use of sign language was essentially simple and direct. He had understood their verbal language for years, but when they spoke to him, they tended to simplify it to match the signs they used. Her signs were closer in nuance and feeling to verbal speech, and they enhanced her words.
“No, feel same,