The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [378]
Ayla decided to make two separate tools, a sharp knife and a pointed awl, and bring them both back to Cattail Camp to make the amulet. She managed to make a serviceable knife, but she was so full of grief and anger, her hands shook. The first time she tried to make the more difficult narrow, sharp point, she shattered it, and then noticed that many people were watching her, which made her nervous. She felt that the Mamutoi flint workers were judging the Clan way of making tools, and she was not representing them well, and then was angry that she should even care. The second time she tried, she broke it, too. Her frustration brought angry tears, which she kept trying to wipe away. Suddenly, Jondalar was kneeling in front of her.
“Is this what you want, Ayla?” he asked, holding up the piercing tool she had made for the special Spring Festival ceremony.
“That’s a Clan tool! Where did you get … that’s the one I made!” she said.
“I know. I went back and got it that day. I hope you don’t mind.”
She was surprised, puzzled, and strangely pleased. “No, I don’t mind. I’m glad you did, but why?”
“I wanted … to study it,” he replied. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say he wanted it to remember her by, to tell her he thought he would be leaving without her. He didn’t want to leave without her.
She took her tools back to Cattail Camp, and asked Nezzie for a piece of soft leather. After she got it, the woman watched her make the simple, gathered pouch.
“They look a little more crude, but those tools really work very well,” Nezzie remarked. “What is the pouch for?”
“It’s Rydag’s amulet, like the one I made for the Spring Festival. I have to put a piece of red ochre in it, and name him the way the Clan does. He should have a totem, too, to protect him on his way to the world of the spirits.” She paused, and wrinkled her brow. “I don’t know what Creb did to discover a person’s totem, but it was always right … maybe I can share my totem with Rydag. The Cave Lion is a powerful totem, difficult to live with sometimes, but he was tested many times. Rydag deserves a strong, protective totem.”
“Is there anything I can do? Does he need to be prepared? Dressed?” Nezzie asked.
“Yes, I’d like to help, too,” Latie said. She was standing at the entrance with Tulie.
“And so would I,” Mamut added.
Ayla looked up and saw almost the entire Lion Camp wanting to help and looking to her for direction. Only the hunters were missing. She was filled with a great warmth for these people who had taken in a strange orphaned child and accepted him as their own, and a righteous anger at the members of the Mammoth Hearth who would not even give him a burial.
“Well, first, someone can get some red ochre, crush it up, like Deegie does to color leather, and mix it in some rendered fat to make a salve. That has to be rubbed all over him. It should be Cave Bear fat, for a proper Clan burial. The Cave Bear is sacred to the Clan.”
“We don’t have Cave Bear fat,” Tornec said.
“There are not many Cave Bears around here,” Manuv added.
“Why not mammoth fat, Ayla?” Mamut suggested. “Rydag wasn’t just Clan. He was mixed. He was part Mamutoi, too, and the mammoth is sacred to us.”
“Yes, I think we could use that. He was Mamutoi, too. We shouldn’t forget that.”
“How about dressing him, Ayla?” Nezzie asked. “He’s never even worn the new clothes I made for him this year.”
Ayla frowned, then nodded agreement. “Why not? After he’s colored with red ochre, the way the Clan does, he could be dressed in his best clothes, like the Mamutoi do for burials. Yes, I think that’s a good idea, Nezzie.”
“I never would have guessed red ochre was a sacred color at their burials, too,” Frebec commented.
“I didn’t even think they buried their dead,” Crozie said.