Martin Walker - The Caves of Perigord

One youth from each clan had qualified for manhood at the great hunt, and they stepped forward in turn as their clan leader called them. Each stripped off his garment, and each was given the ceremonial weapon of his clan, except for Deer. The Keeper of the Bulls took from the edge of the fire the bowl of red clay and the stick whose end had been flattened and shredded into the form of a brush and handed them to Deer. No women were allowed to witness this rite.

“Mark it well for your fellow youths. Lead them this day to the common kill that will bind you all as men,” chanted the Keeper of the Bulls.

Deer advanced on the terrified reindeer, which froze immobile. He painted one red circle around its eye, and another low down on its neck where the shoulders met, and another on each side where the ribs parted and rose to the soft flesh of the belly. The two boys scurried away. Deer went around to the rear of the trembling beast, leaned his chest on its rump and wrapped his arms around its haunches, clutching it to him to keep it still. A trickle of its urine splashed his feet. The lad from the fishers stood to one side, his fish spear aimed at the red circle on the reindeer’s side. The young hunter stood on the other side, a little to the rear, so his arrow would penetrate deep into its vitals. The one with the flint ax stood by its shoulder, his weapon raised high to cleave down to the bones where the neck rose from the shoulders. And the young woodman stood at the beast’s head, the pecking beak on the club’s head pointing forward.

The fire flared as the Keeper of the Bulls tossed dried tinder into the flames, and called, “As one for your common manhood-kill.”

The arrow flew, the fish spear thrust, the great ax fell, and the pecking beak slammed deep into the rolling eye, and Deer felt a great spasm of power tense the haunches as the young reindeer died and its front legs collapsed. Deer unclasped his hands, let the rump sink to the ground, and taking up his bowl of red clay moved to the great cleft at its neck to add the steaming fresh blood to the clay. He stirred it thoroughly, and then went first to the fisher, to paint the sign of the fish on the lad’s heaving chest. Then to the flint man to paint the mark of the ax. Then to the hunter, to paint the curved, taut bow. Finally to the woodman, to paint the sign of the club with its bird’s beak.

Then Deer raised his arms and stood stock-still as each of the other four in turn drew a mark on his chest, a long downward stripe from between his nipples to his belly, and then a fan of thinner strokes that rose to his shoulders. he looked down at his chest. It looked a little, just enough, like the brush he had used to daub the targets on the reindeer and then to daub them. They were bound now in common manhood. There was but one final part of the ceremony.

Dry Leaf emerged from the mass of boys with his lamp, and waited for the other Keepers to light their lamps at the sacrifice fire, and then came to stand beside Deer, his small hand cupped protectively around the charcoal wick. The Keepers led the way, and then Deer with his bowl of bloody clay, and then two by two, the blooded new men followed, each accompanied by his clan leader.

The Keeper of the Bulls led them into the main chamber of the cave, and stood beside the great black bull he had painted. Each of the other Keepers stood beside one of his own beasts.

“That you will have the courage of the bull,” began the Keeper of the Bulls, his voice seeming to come eerily from his eagle’s beak in the dim light of the lamps.

“That you will have the power of the bear,” intoned the Keeper of the Bears.

“That you will be surefooted as the ibex,” echoed the Keeper of the Ibex.

“That you will have the grace of horses,” chanted their Keeper.

“That you will have the speed of the deer,” intoned Deer.

Now Deer alone led the other four youths who had joined him in manhood deep into the next chamber of the cave. This was an act for the five of them alone, the mark of their own generation. The choice of place and sign was theirs. Deer, conscious of the time of mating that lay ahead, led them with his weak and flickering lamp to a female beast, a black cow of leaping grace. There was just room for the five of them to stand abreast.

“Here,” he said, laying his hand on a stretch of white chalk beside the cow’s muzzle, and handing the bowl and brush to each of the others in turn. Each of the four drew a long, vertical line, almost parallel to the next. The woodman, clumsy with the unaccustomed brush, allowed a small vein in the rock to jerk his stroke, and left a slight angle in his line. No matter. Deer drew a half line alongside it to make his own mark, not quite knowing why, but feeling that the pattern was more pleasing. Then he drew a horizontal line that joined the tops of the strokes, and met the cow’s mouth, and turned and looked at his fellows, their faces solemn in the dim light.

“That bonds us as one on this day of manhood,” he said.

Then he drew another horizontal line to join them at bottom, using the two outermost vertical lines to make a square. “That is the sign of the square, drawn in the blood of our kill, that shows that our friendship of this day can never be broken,” he said, and with his thumb drew a small square on each of the other’s foreheads. He handed the bowl to the woodman and said, “Paint one side of the square on my forehead.” Each of the others in turn drew another side of the square, the hunter’s tongue pursed at the corner of the lips as he concentrated to make the last corner meet.

Without another word, Deer led the other four out of the narrow gallery and into the main cave where the clan leaders and the Keepers stood waiting. They marched past them and out to the sacrifice fire, where they placed the bowl with its remains of bloodied clay on the embers and then added the brush. They stood and watched them smoke, catch fire, and burn, as the older men emerged from the cave and began to skin and joint the sacrificed reindeer, and set up spits of green wood to roast the meat.

“It is done,” said the hunter. “We are men now.”

“Aye,” said the woodman. “We will have women tonight.”

As the sun began sinking and glinting red on the river, the women came singing up the hill, the three maidens leading them with flowers in their hair. The young widows had sewn feathers into the seams of their tunics and their children danced in excitement beside them. The married men took torches, lit them in the fire, and then shuffled into two long lines, making a wide passage that led to the fire, jesting with their women as the young girls, eyes downcast, approached.

Again the Keeper of the Bulls dominated the ceremony, standing in his eagle’s mask by the great horned skull, flanked by the chief hunter with his bow and the chief woodman with his beaked club. Each of them had a clan daughter to be betrothed this day. Standing in line with his four fellows, Deer caught his breath as Moon came forward with the other two maidens to lay flowers before the feet of the young men. Heads down, they backed away, and the two long lines of men began the wedding chant, stamping their feet in steady rhythm as the young widows came with flowers in their turn.

Five newly made young men, and three maidens. Two men who had lost their women in childbirth, and five widows. One of them would go back to a lonely bed this night, waiting for another year.

The chief hunter and chief woodman began lengthening the fire, poking the embers while other men brought dry wood to feed the new flames until the fire was as long as three spear lengths. The oldest woman of the village, not a tooth left in her head, limped up to the bull’s skull and poured a bowl of milk, freshly taken from the breasts of nursing mothers, between its horns, to ensure that all the matings would be fruitful.