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Although the cliffs were also riddled with caves, which was common for limestone, these unusual shelflike formations created shelters of stone that made exceptionally good living sites and had been used as such for a great many thousands of years.
Jondalar led Ayla toward the older woman she had seen from the foot of the path. The woman was tall and dignified in her bearing as she waited patiently for them. Her hair, more gray than light brown, was pulled back from her face into one long braid, which was coiled at the back of her head. Her clear direct appraising eyes were also gray.
When they reached her, Jondalar began the formal introduction. “Ayla, this is Marthona, former L
eader of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii; Daughter of Jemara; born to the hearth of Rabanar; mated to Willamar, Trade Master of the Ninth Cave; Mother of Joharran, Leader of the Ninth Cave; Mother of Folara, Blessed of Doni; Mother of …” He started to say “Thonolan,” hesitated, then quickly filled in, “Jondalar, Returned Traveler.” Then he turned to his mother.
“Marthona, this is Ayla of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi, Daughter of the Mammoth Hearth, Chosen by the Spirit of the Cave Lion, Protected by the Spirit of the Cave Bear.”
Marthona held out her two hands. “In the name of Doni, the Great Earth Mother, I welcome you, Ayla of the Mamutoi.”
“In the name of Mut, Great Mother of All, I greet you, Marthona of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, and Mother of Jondalar,” Ayla said, as they joined hands.
Marthona heard Ayla’s words, wondered at her strange speech mannerism, noted how well she spoke in spite of it, and thought it was either a minor speech defect or the accent of a completely unfamiliar language from a very distant place. She smiled. “You have come a long way, Ayla, left all you knew and loved behind. If you had not, I don’t think I would have Jondalar back home. I am grateful to you for that. I hope you will soon feel at home here, and I will do all I can to help you.”
Ayla knew Jondalar’s mother was sincere. Her directness and honesty were genuine; she was glad to have her son back. Ayla was relieved and touched by Marthona’s welcome. “I have looked forward to meeting you since Jondalar first spoke of you … but I have been a little afraid, too,” she replied with a similar directness and honesty.
“I don’t blame you. I would have found it very difficult in your place. Come, let me show you where you can put your things. You must be tired and would like to rest before the welcoming celebration tonight,” Marthona said, starting to lead them toward the area under the overhang. Suddenly Wolf started whining, yelped a little “puppy bark,” and stretched his front paws out with his back end and tail up in a playful posture.
Jondalar was startled. “What is he doing?”
Ayla looked at Wolf, rather surprised as well. The animal repeated his gestures, and suddenly she smiled. “I think he’s trying to get Marthona’s attention,” she said. “He thinks she didn’t notice him, and I think he wants to be introduced.”
“And I want to meet him, too,” Marthona said.
“You don’t fear him!” Ayla said. “And he knows it!”
“I watched. I didn’t see anything to fear,” she said, extending her hand toward the wolf. He sniffed her hand, licked it, and whined again.
“I think Wolf wants you to touch him; he does love attention from people he likes,” Ayla said.
“You do like that, don’t you?” the older woman said as she stroked him. “Wolf? Is that what you called him?”
“Yes. It’s just the Mamutoi word for ‘wolf.’ It seemed like the right name for him,” Ayla explained.
“But, I’ve never seen him take to anyone so fast,” Jondalar said, looking at his mother with awe.
“Nor have I,” Ayla said, watching Marthona with the wolf. “Maybe he’s just happy to meet someone who’s not afraid of him.”
As they walked into the shade of the overhanging stone, Ayla felt an immediate cooling of temperature. For a heartbeat, she shivered with a chill of fear, and glanced up at the huge shelf of stone jutting out of the cliff wall, wondering if it could collapse. But when her eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer light, she was astonished by more than the physical formation of Jondalar’s home. The space under the rock shelter was huge, much larger than she had imagined.
She had seen similar overhangs in the cliffs along this river on their way here, some obviously inhabited, though none seemed quite as sizable as this one. Everyone in the entire region knew of the immense rock shelter and the great number of people it housed. The Ninth Cave was the largest of all the communities that called themselves Zelandonii.
Clustered together at the eastern end of the protected space, along the back wall and freestanding in the middle, were individual structures, many quite large, made partly of stone and partly of wooden frames covered with hides. The hides were decorated with beautifully rendered pictures of animals and various abstract symbols painted in black and many vivid shades of red, yellow, and brown. The structures were arranged in a west-facing curve around an open space near the center of the area covered by the overhanging stone shelf, which was filled with a confusion of objects and people.
As Ayla looked more closely, what at first had struck her all at once as a mélange of rich clutter was resolving itself into areas dedicated to different tasks, often near to related tasks. It only seemed confusing initially because so many activities were going on.
She saw hides being cured in frames, and long shafts of spears, apparently in the process of being straightened, leaning against a crosspiece supported by two posts. Baskets in different stages of completion were stacked in another place, and thongs were drying stretched between pairs of bone posts. Long skeins of cordage hung from pegs pounded into crossbeams above unfinished nets stretched across a frame, and loosely woven netting in bundles on the ground. Skins, some dyed various colors including many shades of red, were cut into pieces and nearby, partially assembled articles of clothing were hanging.
She recognized most of the crafts, but near the clothing was an activity that was entirely unfamiliar. A frame held many strands of thin cord vertically, with a design partially formed from the material woven horizontally across them. She wanted to go over and look closer, and promised herself she would, later. Pieces of wood, stone, bone, antler, and mammoth ivory were in other places, carved into implements—ladles, spoons, bowls, tongs, weapons—most of them with carved and sometimes painted decorations. There were also small sculptures and carvings that were not implements or tools. They seemed to be made for themselves or some purpose of which she wasn’t aware.
She saw vegetables and herbs hanging high from large frames with many crosspieces, and lower to the ground, meat drying on racks. Somewhat away from other activities was an area scattered with sharp stone chips; for people like Jondalar she thought, flint-knappers who made tools, knives, and spear points.
And everywhere she looked, she saw people. The community that lived under the spacious rock shelter was of a size to match the space. Ayla had grown up in a clan of less than thirty people; at the Clan Gathering, which occurred once every seven years, two hundred people came together for a short period, a huge assembly to her then. Though the Mamutoi Summer Meeting drew a much greater number, the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, alone, comprised of over two hundred individuals living together at this one place, was larger than the entire Clan Gathering!
Ayla didn’t know how many people were standing around watching them, but she was reminded of the time she had walked with Brun’s clan into that congregation of clans and felt all of them looking at her. They had tried to be unobtrusive, but the people who were staring as Marthona led Jondalar, Ayla, and a wolf to her living place weren’t even polite about it. They didn’t try to look down or glance away. She wondered if she would ever get used to living with so many people living close by all the time; she wondered if she wanted to.
An Interview with Jean M. Auel
Random House: While your novels focus on a civilization of the past, there is a very modern theme that runs throughout, of Ayla struggling to achieve equality with her peers. When you first created this dynamic character, how much thought did you put into giving her modern sensibilities?
Jean M. Auel: The reason there is a modern sensibility to my characters is that those Cro-Magnon “cavemen” were modern people, the first modern humans in Europe. I researched my characters as much as every other aspect of this early culture. My information is based on the knowledge of today’s scientists, not the antiquarians of the nineteenth century whose views, unfortunately, are still held by too many. I have traveled to many of the locations where those early humans lived and have become acquainted with man
y professionals who study them, some of whom have shown me remarkable sites, including extraordinary painted and engraved caves.
Those early modern humans called Cro-Magnon were the first people who not only had skeletons like ours but were like us in many other ways, which can be convincingly demonstrated by the archaeological record. They were our many-times-great-grandparents; whatever qualities we claim for ourselves, we must grant them. They had the same range of intelligence that we do, the same emotional responses and psychological reactions, the same ease and facility with language, the same talents, skills, and abilities. And they had a remarkable creative impulse. I’ve seen it, and it certainly convinced me. Neanderthals are still unknowns, but they were far more advanced than most of us imagine; they were also human with brains larger than the average today. There were differences between us, but they were our close cousins. Once I learned this, I knew I could write the story of a young Cro-Magnon woman raised by a clan of Neanderthals who then finds her way back to her own kind of people. Ayla’s struggle creates tension and conflict, but it is not a modern theme. It is a universal theme. It’s natural, part of the human condition, to want to be accepted. People understand this and always have.
RH: Your research is praised throughout the world for its accuracy and detail. Can you tell us a bit about your process?
JA: Most of the information comes from reading and library research, but I have also learned a great deal from asking questions, taking classes, and traveling. For example, I took a class from an expert in arctic survival, where we spent a night on the snowy slopes of a nearby mountain to learn how to live in cold conditions. From a class in aboriginal life skills, I learned how people live off the land, and how to brain-tan a deer hide into wearable buckskin. I’ve taken plant identification classes and classes on how to cook wild foods. Ayla’s medicine-woman skills come from a combination of first-aid books, books on herbal medicines, and asking questions of doctors and other skilled health practitioners like nurses and paramedics. I have visited many of the sites I write about to get a feel for them, even though conditions are most likely different now. I even worked for a short time at an archaeological dig so I could understand where information comes from and how scientists find it.
