The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [149]
Ayla nodded. She speared a rather large piece of meat, took one end in her teeth, then, holding the other end, cut off the piece in her mouth with her knife and put the rest back on her scapula bone plate. She chewed for a while with a thoughtful expression, then swallowed.
“Shevonar’s clothes were beautiful. So many little pieces all sewn together into a pattern like that,” she commented. “Animals and designs, it almost seemed to tell a story.”
“In a way, it does,” Willamar said, smiling. “That’s how people are recognized, distinguished from each other. Everything on his Ceremonial outfit means something. It has to have his elandon, and his mate’s, and of course, the Zelandonii abelan.”
Ayla looked puzzled. “I don’t understand those words. What’s an elandon? Or a Zelandonii abelan?” she asked.
Everyone looked at Ayla with surprise. They were such commonly used terms, and Ayla spoke Zelandoni so well, it was hard to believe she didn’t know them.
Jondalar looked a bit chagrined. “I guess the words never came up,” he said. “When you found me, Ayla, I was wearing Sharamudoi clothes, and they don’t have quite the same way of showing who a person is. The Mamutoi have something similar, but not the same. A Zelandonii abelan is a … well … it’s like those tattoos on the sides of Zelandoni’s and Marthona’s forehead,” the man tried to explain.
Ayla looked at Marthona, then Zelandoni. She knew all the zelandonia and the leaders had an elaborate tattoo made up of squares and rectangles of different colors, sometimes embellished with additional lines and swirls, but she’d never heard a name for the mark.
“Perhaps I can explain the meaning of the words,” Zelandoni said.
Jondalar looked relieved.
“I suppose we should start with ‘elan.’ You do know that word?”
“I heard you use it today,” Ayla said. “It means something like spirit or life-force, I think.”
“But you didn’t learn this word before?” Zelandoni asked, scowling at Jondalar.
“Jondalar always said ‘spirit.’ Is that wrong?” Ayla said.
“No, it’s not wrong. And I suppose we do tend to use ‘elan’ more when there is a death, or a birth, because death is the absence or end of elan, and birth is the beginning,” the donier said.
“When a child is born, when a new life comes into this world, it is filled with elan, the vital force of life,” the One Who Was First said. “When the child is named, a Zelandoni creates a mark that is a symbol for that spirit, that new person, and paints it or carves it on some object—a rock, a bone, a piece of wood. That mark is called an abelan. Each abelan is different and is used to designate a particular individual. It might be a design made of lines or shapes or dots, or a simplified form of an animal. Whatever comes to mind when the Zelandoni meditates about the infant.”
“That’s what Creb—The Mog-ur—used to do, meditate, to decide what a new baby’s totem was!” Ayla said, surprised. She wasn’t alone.
“You are talking about the Clan man who was the … Zelandoni of your clan?” the donier asked.
“Yes!” Ayla said, and nodded.
“I’ll have to think on that,” the large woman said, more astounded than she wanted to let on. “To continue, the Zelandoni meditates, then decides on the mark. The object with the mark on it, the symbol object, is the elandon. The Zelandoni gives it to the baby’s mother to keep safe until the child is grown. When they pass into adulthood, the mother gives her children their elandons as part of their coming of age ceremony.
“But the symbol thing, the elandon, is more than just a material object with designs painted or engraved on it. It can hold the elan, the life-force, the spirit, the essence of each member of the Cave, much the way a donii can hold the Mother’s spirit. The elandon has more power than any other personal item. It is so powerful that in the wrong hands it can be