The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [84]
After Nezzie got the fire started, Ayla looked through the storage rooms to see if there was anything that appealed to her to stuff the ptarmigan with. She was tempted by some dried embryos from the eggs of birds, but they would probably have to be soaked, and she wasn’t sure how long that would take. She thought about using wild carrots or the peas from milk vetch pods, but changed her mind.
Then she caught sight of the woven container that still held the gruel of grains and vegetables she had stone-boiled that morning. It had been put aside to lunch on as anyone wished, and had thickened and settled. She tasted it. Without salt, people preferred distinctive, spicy flavors, and she had flavored the gruel with sage and mint, and added bitterroots, onions, and wild carrots to the mixed rye and barley grains.
With some salt, she thought, and the sunflower seeds she had seen in a storage room, and the dried currants … and perhaps coltsfoot and rose hips from her medicine bag, it might make an interesting filling for the ptarmigan. Ayla prepared and stuffed the birds, wrapped them in fresh-cut hay, and buried them in a pit with some bone coals and covered them with ashes. Then she went to see what other people were doing.
A lot of activity was going on near the entrance to the lodge and most of the Camp had congregated there. As she drew near, she saw that large piles of grain-bearing stalks had been collected. Some people were threshing, trampling, beating and flailing bunches of the stalks to free the grain from the straw and hulls. Others were removing the chaff that was left by tossing the grain into the air from wide, flat winnowing trays made of willow withes, to let the lighter husks blow away. Ranec was putting the grain in a mortar made from a hollowed-out mammoth foot bone extended by a section of leg bone. He picked up a mammoth tusk, severed crosswise, which served as the pestle, and began pounding the grains.
Soon Barzec took off his outer fur parka, and standing opposite him, picked up the heavy tusk every other stroke, so that the work alternated back and forth between them. Tornec began clapping his hands together matching the rhythm, and Manuv picked it up with a repetitive, chanting refrain.
“I-yah wo-wo, Ranec pounding grains go yah!
I-yah wo-wo, Ranec pounding grains go neh!”
Then Deegie came in on the alternating stroke harmonizing with a contrasting phrase.
“Neh neh neh neh, Barzec makes it easy yah!
eh neh neh neh, Barzec makes it easy nah!”
Soon others were slapping their thighs, and male voices sang with Manuv while the female voices joined Deegie. Ayla felt the strong rhythm, and hummed along under her breath, not entirely sure about joining in, but enjoying it.
After a time, Wymez, who had taken off his parka, moved close beside Ranec and relieved him without missing a beat. Manuv was just as quick to change the refrain, and on the following beat sang a new line.
“Nah nah we-ye, Wymez takes the grinder yoh!”
When Barzec seemed to tire, Druwez took it from him and Deegie changed her phrase, and then Frebec took a turn.
They stopped then to check the results and poured the ground grain into a sieve basket of plaited cattail leaves, and shook it through. Then more grain was put into the bone mortar, but this time Tulie and Deegie took up the mammoth tusk pestle, and Manuv made up a refrain for both, but sang the female part in a falsetto voice that made everyone laugh. Nezzie took over from Tulie, and on an impulse, Ayla stepped up beside Deegie, which brought smiles