Both children were also adorned with jewelry made of shells, animal canines, bone; the boy even had a large, unusual stone which had been pierced to wear as a pendant. Unlike the adults whose hair was in disarray and covered with ashes, their hair was neatly combed and arranged in elaborate styles – the boy in braids, the girl with large buns on both sides of her head.
Ayla could not dispel the feeling that the children were only sleeping and would wake up any moment. They looked too young, too healthy, with their round-cheeked, unlined faces, to be gone, to have passed into the realm of the spirits. She felt a shudder pass through her, and involuntarily glanced toward Rydag. She caught Nezzie's eye and looked away.
Finally the bodies of the children were brought to the long, narrow trench. They were lowered into it and placed head to head. A woman with a peculiar headdress and a long beaded tunic stood up and began a keening, high-pitched chant that sent shivers through everyone. She wore many necklaces and pendants around her neck that jangled and clicked when she moved, and several loose ivory bracelets around her arms, consisting of several separate half-inch-wide bands. Ayla realized they were similar to the ones some of the Mamutoi used.
A deep reverberating drumbeat sounded with the familiar tone of a mammoth skull drum. Keening and chanting, the woman began to weave and sway, rising up on her toes and lifting her feet, sometimes facing different directions, but staying in one place. As she danced, she waved her arms about sharply and rhythmically, causing her bracelets to rattle. Ayla had met her, and though they had not been able to converse, she felt drawn to her. Mamut had explained that she was not a medicine woman as Ayla was, but one who could communicate with the spirit world. She was the Sungaea counterpart of Mamut – or Creb, Ayla realized with a jolt. It was still difficult for her to conceive of a woman mog-ur.
The man and woman with red faces sprinkled powdered red ochre over the children, making Ayla think of the red ochre salve that Creb had rubbed on Iza's body. Several other things were ceremoniously added to the grave: shafts of mammoth tusk that had been straightened, spears, flint knives and daggers, carvings of a mammoth, a bison, and a horse – not as well made as Ranec's, Ayla thought. She was surprised to see a long ivory staff, decorated with a circular, spoked, wheellike carving to which feathers and other objects were attached, laid beside each child. When the people of the settlement joined in the wailing, keening song of the woman, Ayla quietly leaned forward and whispered to Mamut, "Those staffs look like Talut's. Are they Speaking Staffs?"
"Yes, they are. The Sungaea are related to the Mamutoi, more closely than some people want to admit," Mamut said. "There are some differences, but this burial ceremony is very much like ours."
"Why would they put Speaking Staffs in a grave with children?"
"They are given those things which they will need when they wake up in the spirit world. As the daughter and son of the headwoman, they are a sister and brother who were destined to become co-leaders, if not in this lifetime, then the next," Mamut explained. "It is necessary to show their rank so they do not lose status there."
Ayla watched for a while, then, when they started to put the dirt back in, she spoke to Mamut again.
"Why are they buried like that, head to head?"
"They are brother and sister," he said, as though the rest was self-explanatory. Then he saw her puzzled expression and continued, "It can be a long, difficult, and confusing Journey to the spirit world, especially for those who are so young. They need to be able to communicate, to help and comfort each other, but it is an abomination to the Mother for a brother and sister to share Pleasures. If they wake up side by side, they may forget they are brother and sister, and couple by mistake, thinking they were sleeping together because they were meant to be joined. Head to head, they can encourage each other on the Journey, and still not be confused about their relationship when they reach the other place."
Ayla nodded. It seemed logical, but as she watched the grave being filled in, she fervently wished they had gotten there a few days sooner. Maybe she couldn't have helped, but she could have tried.
Talut stopped at the edge of a small waterway, looked upstream and then downstream, then consulted the marked piece of ivory he held in his hand. He checked the position of the sun, studied some cloud formations in the north, and sniffed the wind. Finally he examined the area nearby.
"We camp here for the night," he said, shrugging off his haversack and packframe. He walked toward his sister as she was deciding where the primary tent would be placed, so the adjoining ones that utilized part of the same structural supports would have plenty of level ground. "Tulie, what would you say to stopping to do a little trading? I was looking at these maps Ludeg made. It didn't occur to me at first, but seeing where we are, look," he said, showing her two different pieces of ivory with marks scratched on them, "here's the map showing the way to Wolf Camp, the new location of the Summer Meeting, and here's the quick one he made showing the way to the Sungaea Camp. From here, it wouldn't be much out of our way to visit Mammoth Camp."
"You mean Musk-Ox Camp," Tulie said, with annoyed disdain. "It was presumptuous of them to rename their Camp. Everyone has a Mammoth Hearth, but no one should name a Camp for the mammoth. Aren't we all Mammoth Hunters?"
"But Camps are always named after the headman's hearth, and their new headman is their Mamut. Besides, that doesn't mean we can't trade with them – if they are not gone for the summer. You know they are related to Amber Camp, and they always have some amber to trade," Talut said, knowing his sister's weakness for the warm, gold-hued stones of petrified resin. "Wymez says they have access to good flint, too. We have plenty of reindeer hides, not to mention some nice furs."
"I don't know how a man can establish a hearth when he doesn't even have a woman, but I just said they were presumptuous. We can still trade with them. Of course we should stop, Talut." The headwoman's expression changed to an enigmatic smile. "Yes, by all means. I think it would be interesting for the 'Mammoth' Camp to meet our Mammoth Hearth."
"Good. We'd better leave early, then," Talut said, but he regarded her with puzzlement, and shook his head wondering what his clever and astute sister was thinking.
When the Lion Camp reached a large sinuous river gouging a channel between steep banks of bess soil, similar to the setting near their lodge, Talut headed out to a promontory between ravines and carefully scanned the surrounding terrain. He saw deer and aurochs near the water on the floodplain below, grazing in a green meadow dotted with small trees. Some distance farther, he noticed a large pile of jumbled bones against a high bank where the river turned sharply. Tiny figures scuttled over the accumulation of dried bones, and he saw several of them carrying away pieces.
"They are still here," he announced. "They must be building."
The travelers trooped down a slope toward the Camp, situated on a broad terrace no more than fifteen feet above the level of the river, and if Ayla had been surprised at the lodge of the Lion Camp, she was astounded by the Mammoth Camp. Rather than a single large, sod-covered, semisubterranean longhouse that Ayla had likened to a cave or even a human-sized burrow, in this Camp several individual round lodges were clustered together on the terrace. They, too, were solid and sturdy under a thick layering of sod covered with clay, and patches of grass grew around the edges, but not on the top. They reminded Ayla of nothing so much as huge, bald, marmot mounds.