The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [381]
She was not using the simplified sign language that she had taught to the Lion Camp. This was the full, complex, rich Clan language in which movements and postures of the entire body had shades and nuances of meaning. Though many of the signs were esoteric—even Ayla didn’t know the full meaning—many ordinary signs were also included, some of which the Lion Camp did know. They were able to understand the essence, know that it was a ritual for sending someone to a world beyond. To the rest of the Mamutoi, Ayla’s movement had the appearance of a subtle, yet expressive dance, full of hand movements, and arm movements, stances and gestures. She evoked in them with her silent grace, the love and the loss, the sorrow and the mythic hope of death.
Jondalar was overwhelmed. His tears flowed as freely as any member of the Lion Camp’s. As he watched her beautiful silent dance, he was reminded of a time in her valley—it seemed so long ago now—when she once had tried to tell him something with the same kind of graceful movements. Even then, though he didn’t understand it was a language, he had sensed some deeper meaning in her expressive gestures. Now that he knew more, he was surprised at how much he didn’t know, yet how beautiful he thought it was when Ayla moved that way.
He remembered the posture she used when they first met, sitting cross-legged on the ground and bowing her head, waiting for him to tap her shoulder. Even after she could speak, she would use it sometimes. It always embarrassed him, particularly after he knew it was a Clan gesture, but she had told him it was her way of trying to say something that she didn’t have the words for. He smiled to himself. It was hard to believe she couldn’t talk when he first met her. Now, she was fluent in two languages: Zelandonii and Mamutoi, three, if he counted Clan. She had even picked up a little Sungaea in the short time she spent with them.
As he watched her move through the Clan ritual, filled with memories of the valley, and memories of their love, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. But Ranec was standing close to her, as enraptured as he. Every time Jondalar looked at Ayla, he could not avoid seeing the dark-skinned man. The moment he arrived, Ranec had sought her out, and he made a point of letting Jondalar know that she was still Promised to him. And Ayla seemed distant, elusive. He had made some attempts to talk to her, to express his sorrow, but after their first moments of shared grief, she seemed unwilling to accept his efforts to console her. He wondered if he was imagining it. As upset as she was, what else could he expect?
Suddenly, all heads turned at the sound of a steady beat. Marut, the drummer, had gone to the Music Lodge and brought his mammoth skull drum back. Music was usually played at Mamutoi funerals, but the sounds he was making were not the usual Mamutoi rhythms. They were the unfamiliar, strangely fascinating rhythms of the Clan that Ayla had shown him. Then the bearded musician, Manen, began to play the simple flute tones she had whistled. The music matched, in an unexplainable way, the movements of the woman who was dancing a ritual as evanescent as the sound of music itself.
Ayla had almost completed the ritual, but she decided to repeat it, since they were playing Clan sounds. The second time they went through it, the musicians began to improvise. With their expertise and skill, they made the simple Clan sounds into something else, which was neither Clan nor Mamutoi, but a mixture of both. A perfect accompaniment, Ayla thought, for the funeral of a boy who was a mixture of both.
Ayla