The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [414]
Guban nodded, of course not.
“Iza made this woman remember, made this woman tell Iza over and over, show over and over, until the medicine woman knew this woman would not lose the memories. This woman was happy to practice, to repeat many times to learn the ways of a medicine woman.”
Although her gestures remained stylized and formal, her words became less so as she continued her explanation.
“Iza told me she thought this woman came from a long line of medicine women, too, medicine women of the Others. Iza said I thought like a medicine woman, but she taught me how to think about medicine like a woman of the Clan. This woman was not born with the memories of a medicine woman, but Iza’s memories are my memories now.”
Ayla had everyone’s attention. “Iza got sick, a coughing sickness that not even she could heal, and I began to do more. Even the leader was pleased when I treated a burn, but Iza gave status to the clan. When she was too sick to make the trip to the Clan Gathering, and her true daughter was still too young, the leader and the Mog-ur decided to make me medicine woman. They said that since I had her memories, I was a medicine woman of her line. The other mog-urs and leaders at the Clan Gathering didn’t like the idea at first, but they finally accepted me, too.”
Ayla could see Guban was interested, and she sensed he wanted to believe her, but he still had doubts. She took off the decorated bag from around her neck, untied the cords, and spilled out some of the contents into her palm, then picked out a small black stone and held it out to him.
Guban knew what it was, the black stone that would leave a mark was a mystery. Even the smallest piece could hold a tiny fraction of the spirits of all the people of the Clan, and was given to a medicine woman when a piece of hers was taken. The amulet she wore was strange, he thought, typical of the way the Others made things, but he hadn’t known they wore amulets at all. Maybe the Others weren’t all ignorant and brutish.
Guban noticed another of the objects from her amulet and pointed to it. “What is that?”
Ayla put the rest of her objects back in her amulet and put it down so she could answer. “It is my hunting talisman,” she said.
That could not be true, Guban thought. This would prove her wrong. “Women of the Clan do not hunt.”
“I know, but I was not born to the Clan. I was chosen by a Clan totem who protected me and led me to the clan that became mine, and my totem wanted me to hunt. Our mog-ur reached back and found the old spirits who told him. They made a special ceremony. I was called the Woman Who Hunts.”
“What is this Clan totem that chose you?”
Much to Guban’s surprise, Ayla lifted her tunic, unloosened the drawstring ties from around the waist of her leggings, and lowered the side enough to show her left thigh. Four parallel lines, the scars left by the claws that had raked her thigh when she was a girl, showed clearly. “My totem is the Cave Lion.”
The Clan woman caught her breath. The totem was too strong for a woman. It would be difficult for her to have children.
Guban grunted acknowledgment. The Cave Lion was the strongest hunting totem, a man’s totem. He had never known a woman to have it, yet those were the marks that were cut into the right thigh of a boy whose totem was the Cave Lion, after he’d made his first major kill and become a man. “It is on the left leg. The mark is put on a man’s right leg.”
“I am a woman, not a man. The woman’s side is the left side.”
“Your mog-ur marked you there?”
“The Cave Lion himself marked me, when I was a girl, just before my clan found me.”
“That would explain using