The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [379]
“Obviously, the Mammoth Hearth didn’t either,” Tulie said. “They are going to be in for a surprise.”
Ayla asked Deegie for one of the wooden bowls she had given her as an adoption gift, made in the Clan style, and used it to mix the red ochre and mammoth fat into a colored salve. But it was Nezzie, Crozie, and Tulie, the three oldest women of Lion Camp, who rubbed it on him, and then dressed him. Ayla put aside a small dab of the oily red paste for later, and put a lump of the red iron ore into the pouch she had made.
“What about wrapping him?” Nezzie asked. “Shouldn’t he be wrapped, Ayla?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Ayla said.
“We use a hide or a fur, or something, to carry him out, and then it’s wrapped around him before he is laid in the grave,” Nezzie explained.
It was another Mamutoi custom, Ayla realized, but it seemed that with dressing him so richly and putting all his jewelry on him, there was already more Mamutoi than Clan to this burial. The three women were watching her expectantly. She looked back at Tulie, then Nezzie. Yes, maybe Nezzie was right. Something should be used to carry him, some kind of bedding or cover. Then she looked at Crozie.
Suddenly, though she hadn’t thought of it for some time, she remembered something: Durc’s cloak. The cloak she had used to carry her son close to her breast when he was an infant, and to support him on her hip when he was a toddler. It was the one thing she had taken with her from the Clan that had no necessary purpose. Yet, how many nights when she was alone had Durc’s carrying cloak given her a sense of connection with the only place of security she had known, and to those she had loved. How many nights had she slept with that cloak? Cried into it? Rocked it? It was the one thing she owned that had belonged to her son, and she wasn’t sure if she could give it up, but did she really need it? Was she going to carry it around with her for the rest of her life?
Ayla noticed Crozie looking at her again, and remembered the white cape, the one that Crozie had made for her son. She had carried it around with her for many years, because it meant so much to her. But she had given it up for a good purpose, to Racer, to protect him. Wasn’t it more important for Rydag to be wrapped in something that had come from the Clan, when he was sent on his way to walk in the spirit world, than for her to carry Durc’s cloak around? Crozie had finally let the memory of her son go. Maybe it was time for her to let Durc go, too, and just be grateful that he was more than a memory.
“I have something to wrap him in,” Ayla said. She rushed to her sleeping place and from the bottom of a pile, she pulled out a folded hide and shook it out. She held the soft, supple, old leather of her son’s cloak to her cheek once more, and closed her eyes, remembering. Then she walked back and gave it to Rydag’s mother.
“Here’s a wrapping,” she told Nezzie, “a Clan wrapping. It once belonged to my son. Now it will help Rydag in the spirit world. And thank you, Crozie,” she added.
“Why are you thanking me?”
“For everything you’ve done for me, and for showing me that all mothers must let go sometime.”
“Hmmmf!” the old woman said, trying to look stern, but her eyes glistened with feeling. Nezzie took the cloak from Ayla and covered Rydag.
By then it was dark. Ayla had planned to do a simple ceremony inside the tent, but Nezzie asked her to wait until morning and conduct the ceremony outside, to show everyone at the Meeting Rydag’s humanity. It would also give the hunters a little more time to return. No one wanted Talut and Ranec to miss Rydag’s funeral, but they could not wait too long.
Late the next morning they carried the body outside and laid it out on the cloak. Many people from the Meeting had gathered around, and more were coming. Word had spread that Ayla was going to give Rydag a flathead burial, and everyone was curious. She had the small bowl of red ochre paste and the amulet, and had begun calling the Spirits to attend, as Creb had always done, when another commotion arose. Much to Nezzie