Jean Auel - The Clan of the Cave Bear

For all the beatings, Iza continued to make use of her herbal magic. Yet, when she found herself pregnant, she resigned herself to her fate. Some spirit had finally overcome both her totem and her magic. Perhaps it was his; but, Iza thought, if the vital principle of his totem had finally prevailed, why had the spirit deserted him when the cave collapsed? She held out one last hope. She wished for a daughter, a girl to detract from his newly gained esteem, and a girl to carry on her line of medicine women, though she had been ready to end the line with herself rather than have a child while she lived with her mate. If she gave birth to a son, her mate would have been fully vindicated; a girl would still leave something to be desired. Now Iza wanted a girl even more-not to deny her dead mate’s posthumous prestige, but to allow her to live with Creb.

Iza put her medicine bag away and crawled into her fur beside the peacefully sleeping child. Ayla must be lucky, Iza thought. There’s the new cave, and she is going to be allowed to stay with me, and we are going to share Creb’s fire. Maybe her luck will bring me a daughter, too. Iza put her arm around Ayla and snuggled close to her warm little body.

After breakfast the next morning, Iza beckoned to the child and headed upstream. As they walked beside the water, the medicine woman looked for certain plants. After a few moments, Iza saw a clearing on the other side and crossed over. Growing on the open ground were several plants, about a foot high with dull green leaves attached to long stalks tipped with spikes of small, densely packed, green flowers. Iza dug up the redrooted pigweed and headed for a marshy area beside sluggish backwater and found scouring-rush horsetail ferns and, farther upstream, soaproot. Ayla, following her, watched with interest, wishing she could communicate with the woman. Her head was full of questions she couldn’t ask.

They went back to the campsite and Ayla watched her fill a tightly woven basket with water and add the stalky ferns and hot rocks from the fire. Ayla squatted beside the woman while Iza cut a circular piece with a sharp flake of stone out of the cloak she had used to carry the girl. Though soft and pliable, the fat-cured leather was tough, but the stone knife cut it with ease. With another stone tool, chipped to a point, Iza pierced several holes around the edge of the circle. Then she twisted tough stringy bark from a low-growing shrub into a cord and threaded it through the holes and pulled it tight to make a pouch. With a quick flick of her knife, one made by Droog and a tool Iza treasured, she cut off a piece of the long thong that held her wrap closed, first measuring it around Ayla’s neck. The entire process took only a few moments.

When the water in the cooking basket was bubbling, Iza gathered up the other plants she had collected, along with the watertight wicker bowl, and went back to the stream. They walked along the bank until they came to a place where it eased into the water in a gradual slope. Finding a round stone she could hold easily in her hand, Iza pounded the soaproot with water in a saucerlike depression of a large flattish rock near the stream. The root sudsed into a rich, saponin-fllled lather. Taking stone tools and other small items from the folds, Iza unwound the thong and removed her wrap. She slipped her amulet over her head and carefully placed it on top.

Ayla was delighted when Iza took her hand and led her into the stream. She loved the water. But after a thorough wetting, the woman picked her up, sat her on the rock, and lathered her from head to foot, including her stringy, matted hair. After dunking her in the cool water, the woman made a motion and squeezed her eyes shut. Ayla didn’t understand the motion, but when she mimicked the woman, Iza nodded, and she understood the woman wanted her to close her eyes. The child felt her head being bent forward, then the warm liquid from the bowl of ferns poured over her. Her head had been itching and Iza had noticed tiny crawling vermin. The woman massaged in the lice-killing liquid extracted from the horsetail fern. After a second rinsing in the cold stream, Iza crushed the pigweed root together with its leaves and lathered it into her hair. A final dunking followed, then Iza performed the same ablutions on herself while the child played in the water.

While they were sitting on the bank letting the sun dry them, Iza peeled the bark off a twig with her teeth and used it to pull snarls out of their hair as it dried. She was astonished at the fine, silky softness of Ayla’s near-white hair. Certainly unusual, Iza thought, but rather nice. It’s really her best feature. She looked at the child without making it obvious. Though suntanned, the child was still lighter than she, and Iza thought the skinny, pale little girl with her light eyes was amazingly unattractive. Unusual looking people; there’s no doubt they are human, but so ugly. Poor child. How will she ever find a mate?

If she doesn’t mate, how will she ever have any status? She could be like the old woman who died in the earthquake, Iza thought. If she were my real daughter, then she’d have her own status too. I wonder if I could teach her some healing magic? That would give her some value. If I have a girl, I could train them both; and if I have a boy, there won’t be another woman to carry on my line. The clan will need a new medicine woman someday. If Ayla knew the magic, they might accept her-some man might even be willing to mate her. She’s going to be accepted into the clan; why can’t she be my daughter? Iza already thought of the girl as hers, and her musings planted the germ of an idea.

She looked up, noticed the sun was much higher, and realized it was getting late. I must finish her amulet and then prepare to make the drink from the root, Iza said to herself, suddenly remembering her responsibilities.

“Ayla,” she called to the child who had wandered toward the stream again. The girl came running. Looking at her leg, Iza saw the water had softened the scabs, but it was healing well. Hurrying back into her wrap, Iza led the child toward the ridge, stopping first to get her digging stick and the small pouch she had made. She had noticed a ditch of red soil just on the other side of it, near the place they had stopped before Ayla showed them the cave. When they reached it, she poked with her stick until several small chunks of red ochre broke loose. Picking up a few small pieces, she held them out to Ayla. The girl looked at them, not sure what was expected, then tentatively touched one. Iza took the small lump, put it in the pouch, and tucked the pouch in a fold. Before turning to go back, Iza looked out over the view and saw small figures moving across the plains below. The hunters had left early in the morning.

Many ages before, men and women, far more primitive than Brun and his five hunters, learned to compete for game with four-legged predators by watching and copying their methods. They saw, for example, how wolves, working together, could bring down prey many times larger and more powerful than themselves. Over time, using tools and weapons rather than claws and fangs, they learned that by cooperating, they, too, could hunt the large beasts that shared their environment. It prodded them along their evolutionary journey.

With a need for silence so as not to warn the game they were stalking, they developed hunting signals that evolved into the more elaborate hand signals and gestures used to communicate other needs and desires. Warning cries changed in pitch and tone to include greater informational content. Though the branch of the tree of man that led to the people of the Clan did not include sufficiently developed vocal mechanisms to evolve a full verbal language, it did not impair their ability to hunt.

The six men started out at first light. From their vantage point near the ridge, they watched the sun, sending its beams ahead as scouts, creep tentatively over the edge of the earth, then blazon forth in full command of the day. Toward the northeast, a vast cloud of soft loess dust shrouded an undulating mass of shaggy brown movement accented by curving black spikes; a broad trail of trampled earth, entirely devoid of vegetation, followed the slowly moving herd of bison defacing the golden green plains. No longer slowed by women and children, the hunters covered the distance to the steppes quickly.