Latie's eyes opened wide. She didn't know it was that dangerous. "I'll be careful, I won't let any male spirit come too close, but… Mamut…"
"What is it, Latie?"
"What about you, Mamut? You're a man."
Several women giggled, and Latie blushed. Maybe it was a stupid question.
"I would have asked the same question," Ayla remarked. Latie gave her a grateful look.
"It is a good question," Mamut said. "I am a man, but I also Serve Her. It would probably be safe to talk to me any time, and of course, for certain rituals when I am acting as One Who Serves, you will have to speak to me alone, Latie. But I think it would still be a good idea not to come just to visit me or to speak to me unless another woman is with you."
Latie nodded, frowning seriously, beginning to feel the responsibility of establishing a new relationship with people she had known and loved all her life.
"What happens when a male spirit steals the life force?" Ayla asked, very curious about these interesting beliefs of the Mamutoi that were somewhat similar, yet very different from the traditions of the Clan.
"Then you have a powerful shaman," Tulie said.
"Or an evil one," Crozie added.
"Is that true, Mamut?" Ayla asked. Latie looked surprised and puzzled, and even Deegie, Tronie, and Fralie turned to Mamut with interest.
The old man gathered his thoughts, trying to choose his answer carefully. "We are only Her children," he began. "It is difficult for us to know why Mut, the Great Mother, selects some of us for special purposes. We only know that She has Her reasons. Perhaps there are times when She has need for someone of exceptional power. Some people may be born with certain gifts. Others may be chosen later, but no one is chosen without Her knowledge." Several eyes shifted toward Ayla, trying not to be conspicuous about it.
"She is the Mother of all," he continued. "No one can know Her completely, in all Her faces. That's why the face of the Mother is unknown on the figures that represent Her." Mamut turned to the oldest woman of the Camp. "What is evil, Crozie?"
"Evil is malicious harm. Evil is death," the old woman replied with conviction.
"The Mother is all, Crozie. The face of Mut is the birth of spring, the bounty of summer, but it is also the little death of winter. Hers is the power of life, but the other face of life is death. What is death but return to Her to be reborn? Is death evil? Without death, there can be no life. Is evil malicious harm? Perhaps, but even those who seem to work evil, do so for Her reasons. Evil is a force She controls, a means to accomplish Her purposes; it is only an unknown face of the Mother."
"But what happens when a male force steals the life force of a woman?" Latie asked. She didn't want philosophies, she wanted to know.
The Mamut looked at her speculatively. She was almost a woman, she had the right to be told. "She will die, Latie."
The girl shivered.
"Even if it is stolen. Some may remain, enough for her to start a new life. The life force that resides in a woman is so powerful she may not know it was stolen until she is giving birth. When a woman dies in childbirth, it is always because a male spirit stole her life force before she was opened. That's why it is not healthy to wait too long for the Womanhood ceremony. If the Mother had made you ready last fall, I would have talked to Nezzie about arranging a gathering of a few Camps to have a ceremony so you would not go through the winter unprotected, even though it means you would have missed the excitement of the celebration at the Summer Meeting."
"I'm glad I won't have to miss it, but…" Latie paused, still more concerned about life force than celebration, "does a woman always die?"
"No, sometimes she struggles to keep her life force, and if it is powerful, she may not only keep it, but the male force as well, or a part of it. Then she has the power of both in one body."
"Those are the ones who become powerful shamans," – Tulie volunteered.
Mamut nodded. "Often, that is true. In order to learn how to use the power of both female and male, many people turn to the Mammoth Hearth for guidance, and many of those are called to Serve Her. They are often very good Healers, or Travelers in the Mother's underworld."
"What about the male spirit that does steal the life force?" Fralie asked, putting her new baby over her shoulder and patting gently. She knew it was a question her mother wanted to ask.
"That's the one who is evil," Crozie said.
"No," Mamut said, shaking his head. "That is not true. The male force is just attracted to a woman's life force. It cannot help itself, and men don't usually know that their male force has taken a young woman's life force until they discover they are not attracted to women, but prefer the company of other men. Young men are vulnerable then. They don't want to be different, they don't want anyone to know their male spirit may have harmed some woman. They often feel great shame, and rather than come to the Mammoth Hearth, they try to hide it."
"But there are evil ones among them with great power," Crozie said. "Power to destroy an entire Camp."
"The force of male and female in one body is very powerful. Without guidance, it can become perverted and malicious, and may want to cause illness and misfortune, even death. Even without such power, a person wishing misfortune on another can cause it to happen. With it, the results are almost inevitable, but with proper guidance, a man with both forces can become just as powerful a shaman as a woman with both forces, and is often more careful to use it only for good."
"What if a person like that doesn't want to be a shaman?" Ayla asked. She may have been born with her "gifts" but she still had feelings of being pushed into something she wasn't sure she wanted.
"They don't have to," Mamut said. "But it's easier for them to find companionship, others like themselves, from among Those Who Serve the Mother."
"Do you remember those Sungaea travelers we met many years ago, Mamut?" Nezzie asked. "I was young then, but wasn't there some confusion about one of their hearths?"
"Yes, I remember, now that you mention it. We were just returning from the Summer Meeting, several Camps still traveling together when we met them. No one was quite sure what to expect, there had been some raiding, but finally we had a friendship fire with them. Some Mamutoi women got upset because one Sungaea man wanted to join them in their 'mother's place.' It took a lot of explaining to make it understood that the hearth which we thought consisted of one woman and her two co-mates was really one man and his two co-mates, except that one of them was a woman, and one of them was a man. The Sungaea referred to him as 'she.' He was bearded, but dressed in women's clothes, and though he had no breasts, he was 'mother' to one of the children. He certainly acted like the child's mother. I'm not sure if the child had been given to him by the woman of that hearth, or by another woman, but I was told that he experienced all the symptoms of pregnancy, and the pain of delivery."
"He must have wanted to be a woman very much," Nezzie commented. "Maybe he didn't steal some woman's life force. Maybe he was born in the wrong body. That can happen, too."
"But did he have stomachaches every moon time?" Deegie asked. "There's the test of a woman." Everyone laughed.
"Do you have moon time stomachaches, Deegie? I can give you something to help, if you want," Ayla said.
"I may ask, next time."
"Once you have a child, it won't be so bad, Deegie," Tronie said.