The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [107]
Ayla untied the drawstring of her sewing kit, a small leather bag sewn together around the sides and gathered at the top. Missing ivory beads that had once formed a geometrie pattern and frayed threads of embroidery betrayed the heavy use of the worn pouch. She emptied the small objects it contained into her lap. There were various sizes of cords and threads made of plant fibers, sinew, and animal hair, including several of the wool of mammoth, mouflon, musk ox, and rhino, each wound around small bone phalanges. Several small, sharp blades of flint used for cutting were tied together with sinew, as was a bundle of awls of bone and flint that were for piercing. A small square of tough mammoth hide served as a thimble. The last objects were three small tubes made of hollow bird bones.
She picked up a tube, removed a diminutive wad of leather from one end, and tipped the contents into her hand. A small tapering shaft of ivory slid out, with a point at one end—similar to an awl, but with a tiny hole at the other end. She handed it carefully to Marthona.
“Do you see the hole?” Ayla asked.
Marthona held it away from her. “I can’t really see it well,” she said, then brought it closer and felt the small object, first the sharp point, then along the shaft to the opposite end. “Ah! There it is! I can feel it. That’s a very small hole, not much bigger than the hole of a bead.”
“The Mamutoi do pierce beads, but no one at Lion Camp was a skilled bead-maker. Jondalar made the boring tool used to make the hole. I think that was the most difficult part of making this thread-puller. I didn’t bring anything to sew, but I’ll show you how it works,” Ayla said, taking it back. She selected the bone phalange that held sinew, unwound a length, wet the end in her mouth, deftly poked it through the hole, and pulled it through. Then she handed it to Marthona.
The woman looked at the threaded needle, but saw more with her hands than with her aging eyes, which could still see objects that were far away quite well, but not nearly so well as those that were near. Her frown of concentration as she examined it suddenly brightened to a smile of understanding. “Of course!” she said. “With this I believe I could sew again!”
“On some things, you need to make a hole with an awl first. As sharp as you can make it, the ivory point won’t pierce thick or tough leather very easily,” Ayla explained, “but it’s still better than trying to get the thread through a hole without it. I could make holes, but I just couldn’t learn how to pick up the thread through the hole with the point of an awl, no matter how patient Nezzie and Deegie were.”
Marthona smiled in agreement, then looked puzzled. “Most young girls have that trouble when they are learning; didn’t you learn to sew when you were young?”
“The Clan doesn’t sew, not in the same way. They wear wraps that are tied on. A few things are knotted together, like birch bark containers, but they have rather large holes to pull through the cords that are tied together, not like the fine little holes that Nezzie wanted me to make,” Ayla said.
“I keep forgetting your childhood was … unusual,” Marthona said. “If you didn’t learn to sew as a girl, I can see how it would be difficult, but this is a remarkably clever device.” She looked up. “I think Proleva is coming this way. I would like to show her, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Ayla said. Glancing at the sunny terrace in front of the overhang, she saw Joharran’s mate and Salova, Rushemar’s mate, coming toward them, and noticed that many more people were up and moving about.
The women greeted each other, then Marthona said, “Look at this, Proleva. You, too, Salova. Ayla calls it a ‘thread-puller.’ She was just showing it to me. It’s very clever, and I think it will help me to sew again, even if I can’t see close very clearly anymore. I’ll be able to do it by feel.”
The two women, who had both constructed many garments in their lives, quickly grasped the concept of the new implement and were soon discussing its potential with excitement.
“Learning to