The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [64]
Then came the bloody job of gutting, skinning, and butchering. Ayla joined Deegie, and helped her roll a big cow over to bare its tender underside. Jondalar walked toward them, but Ranec was closer, and got there first. Jondalar watched, wondering if they would need help or if a fourth would just get in the way.
Starting at the anus, they slit the stomach to the throat, cutting the milk-filled udders away. Ayla grabbed one side and Ranec the other, to tear open the rib cage. They cracked it apart, then with Deegie almost climbing inside the still warm cavity, they pulled out the internal organs—stomach, intestines, heart, liver. It was done quickly, so the intestinal gases, which would soon start bloating the carcass, would not taint the meat. Next, they started on the hide.
It was obvious they needed no help. Jondalar saw Latie and Danug struggling with the rib cage of a smaller animal. He nudged Latie aside, and with both hands tore it open with one powerful angry rip. But butchering was hard work, and by the time they were ready to skin, the effort had taken the edge off his anger.
Ayla was not unfamiliar with the process; she had done it alone, many times. The hide was not cut off so much as it was stripped off. Once it was cut loose from around the legs, it separated rather easily from the muscle, and it was more efficient and cleaner to fist it loose from inside or to pull it off. Where a ligament was attached and it was easier to cut, they used a special skinning knife with a bone handle and a flint blade sharp on both edges but rounded and dull at the tip, so as not to pierce the skin. Ayla was so accustomed to using handheld knives and tools she felt awkward using a hafted blade, though she could already tell she would have better control and leverage once she got used to it.
The tendons from legs and back were stripped out; sinew was put to a wide range of uses from sewing thread to snares. The hide would become leather or fur. The long shaggy hair was made into rope and cordage of various sizes, and netting for fishing, or trapping birds, or small animals in their season. All the brains were saved, also several of the hooves, to be boiled up with bones and scraps of hide for glue. The huge horns, which could span as much as six feet, were prized. The solid ends that extended for a third of their length could be used as levers, pegs, punches, wedges, daggers. The hollow portion with the solid distal end removed became conical tubes used to blow up fires, or funnels to fill skin bags with liquids or powders or seeds, and to empty them again. A central section, with some of the solid part left intact for a bottom, could serve as a drinking cup. Narrow transverse cuts could make buckles, bracelets, or retaining rings.
The noses and tongues of the bison were saved—choice delicacies along with livers—then the carcasses were cut into seven pieces: two hindquarters, two forequarters, the midsection halved, and the huge neck. The intestines, stomachs, and bladders were washed and rolled in the hides. Later they would be blown up with air, to keep them from shrinking, and then used for cooking or storage containers for fats and liquids, or floats for fishing nets. Every part of the animal was used, but not every part of every animal was taken; only the choicest or most useful. Only so much as could be carried.
Jondalar had taken Racer partway up the steep path and, to the young horse’s distress, tied him securely to a tree to keep him out of the way, and out of danger. Whinney had found him as soon the bison were penned and Ayla let her go. Jondalar went to get him after he finished helping Latie and Danug with the first bison, but Racer was skittish around all the dead animals. Whinney didn’t like it either, but she was more accustomed to it. Ayla saw them coming, and noticed Barzec and Druwez walking downstream again, and it occurred to her that in the rush to get the bison turned and chased into the trap, their packs had been left behind. She went after them.
“Barzec, you go back for packs?” she asked.
He smiled