The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [418]
Ayla thought there was something familiar about the chant; then she realized what it was. The words were in the sacred archaic language that was understood only by the mamuti. Ayla didn’t understand all of it, Mamut had just begun to teach her the language before she left, but she did gather that the meaning of the loud chant was essentially the same as the words that had been shouted earlier, though cast in somewhat more cajoling terms. It was an exhortation to the strange wolf and horse-people spirits to go away and leave them alone, to go back to the spirit world where they belonged.
Speaking in Zelandonii so the people from the Camp wouldn’t understand, Ayla told Jondalar what the mamut was saying.
“They think we’re spirits? Of course!” he said. “I should have known. They’re afraid of us. That’s why they’re threatening us with spears. Ayla, we may have this problem every time we meet people along the way. We are used to the animals now, but most people have never thought of horses or wolves as anything but food or pelts,” he said.
“The Mamutoi at the Summer Meeting were upset in the beginning. It took them a while to get used to the idea of having the horses and Wolf around, but they got over it,” Ayla said.
“When I opened my eyes that first time in the cave in your valley and saw you helping Whinney give birth to Racer, I thought the lion had killed me and I had awakened in the spirit world,” Jondalar said. “Maybe I should get down, too, and show them I am a man and not attached to Racer like some kind of man-horse spirit.”
Jondalar dismounted, but he held on to the rope attached to the halter he had made. Racer was tossing his head and trying to back away from the advancing mamut, who was still shaking the staff and chanting loudly. Whinney was behind the kneeling woman, with her head down, touching her. Ayla used neither ropes nor halters to guide her horse. She directed the horse entirely with the pressures of her legs and the movements of her body.
Catching a few sounds of the strange language the spirits spoke, and seeing Jondalar dismount, the shaman chanted louder, pleading with the spirits to go away, promising them ceremonies, trying to placate them with offers of gifts.
“I think you should tell them who we are,” Ayla said. “That mamut is getting very upset.”
Jondalar held the rope close to the stallion’s head. Racer was alarmed and trying to rear, and the mamut with her staff and shouting didn’t help. Even Whinney looked ready to spook, and she was usually much more even-tempered than her excitable offspring.
“We are not spirits,” Jondalar called out when the mamut paused for a breath. “I am a visitor, a traveler on a Journey, and she”—he pointed toward Ayla—“is Mamutoi, of the Mammoth Hearth.”
The people glanced at each other with questioning looks, and the mamut stopped shouting and dancing, but still shook the staff now and then while studying them. Maybe they were spirits who were playing tricks, but at least they had been made to speak in a language everyone could understand. Finally the mamut spoke.
“Why should we believe you? How do we know you are not trying to trick us? You say she is of the Mammoth Hearth, but where is her mark? She has no tattoo on her face.”
Ayla spoke up. “He didn’t say I was a mamut. He said I was of the Mammoth Hearth. The old Mamut of the Lion Camp was teaching me before I left, but I am not fully trained.”
The mamut conferred with a man and a woman, then turned back. “This one,” she said, nodding toward Jondalar, “he is as he says, a visitor. Though he speaks well enough, it is with the tones of a foreign tongue. You say you are Mamutoi, yet something about the way you speak is not Mamutoi.”
Jondalar caught his breath and waited. Ayla did have an unusual