The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [326]
The young women who were preparing for their Rites of First Pleasures were all housed in a special guarded lodge near the zelandonia lodge. It was decided that the young pregnant woman should stay with the other girls and go through the full ceremony, since she had to have First Rites before she could be mated anyway. It was felt that she needed to be taught what young women needed to know, but when she was moved in with the others, some of them objected.
“The Rites of First Pleasures is a ceremony to open a girl to make her a woman. If she’s already open, why is Janida here? It’s supposed to be for girls who wait, not girls who cheat,” one of them said in a voice loud enough for all to hear.
Several agreed with her, but not all. One of them countered, “She’s here because she wants to get mated at the First Matrimonial, and a girl can’t get mated until she’s had First Rites, and besides, the Mother has Blessed her.”
Others, some of whom had started their moon times not long after the previous Summer Meeting and were rumored to have experimented with some private opening rites themselves, tried to be more welcoming, but most felt a need to be careful. They knew their good names were likely to be dependent on the discretion of the man who was chosen for them, and he could be related to one of the girls who had waited. They didn’t want to offend anyone. They were more than aware that they could suffer a similar shame, and they were seeing the problems it could cause.
Janida smiled at the one who spoke up for her, but said nothing. She felt a little older and wiser than most of the girls in the lodge. At least she knew what to expect, not like the ones who waited and were both eager and worried, and she was gaining some courage for having faced up to all her detractors. Besides, she was pregnant, Blessed by Doni, no matter what anyone said, and she was at the stage in her pregnancy when she was awash with optimistic feelings. She didn’t know that certain hormones in her body had been activated by her pregnancy, she only knew she was happy to be having a baby and feeling content.
Although the girls were supposed to be in seclusion and well guarded, somehow the comments that had been made when Janida joined them, especially the phrase that First Rites were supposed to be “for girls who wait, not girls who cheat,” were reported all through the camp. When the First heard about it, she was furious. It had to be one of their own, the zelandonia, who had spread the word—no one else could have been that close—and she wished she knew who it was.
Ayla and Jondalar had been working on aurochs hides most of the day, first scraping off the fat and membranes from the inside, and the hair on the outside with flint-scrapers, then soaking them in a solution of the cow’s brains that had been worked by hand into a puree and mixed with water, which gave the hides an amazingly soft elasticity. Then the hide was rolled up and twisted to squeeze out as much liquid as possible, often using two people, one at each end. Small holes were then pierced all around the edge, about three inches apart. A rectangular frame that was larger than the full hide had been constructed out of four poles, and the wet skin was attached to the frame with a cord tied through each hole and pulled tight. Then the hard work began.
With the frame anchored securely, resting against trees or a horizontal beam, the hides were snaked. A pole with a flattened, but rounded end was used to poke the hides as far as they would stretch, up and down, side to side, over and over, until after half a day of work the hide was finally dry. At that stage it was nearly white, with a soft