Spear’s flint knife, some eight inches long, the handle wrapped in leather, taken from a rawhide belt, thrust down into the hot meat.
It was the first time, of course, that Hamilton had witnessed a feeding.
Piece by great chunk was ripped and pulled from the roasted carcass and thrown to the hunters who, squatting down, with both hands, began to feed on it, tearing it apart with their teeth and fingers.
Spear cut a huge chunk away and threw it to Tooth, the hunter with the prognathous jaw, the atavistically extended canine on the upper right side of his mouth. The children clustered around him.
Then Spear cut pieces of meat for those females who were pregnant, their bellies heavy with child beneath the skins, their breasts already swelling with milk. There were four such females, slow, and awkward, who took the meat and began to chew on it.
The man with the large tooth cut small pieces of meat for each of the tiny children, those walking, those less than some five years of age. The small ones would be guaranteed food, and the pregnant females. It was the law. Spear had made it. The man with the large tooth then gave the rest of that chunk of meat to the young, blond girl, she who was some fourteen years of age, and she it was who would distribute it among the older children. She took the first piece herself, and ate it, they watching, eyes wide, waiting for her favor. Some of them whimpered, and put out their hands, and she struck them away. Others pointed to their mouths. One boy, Hamilton noticed, did not beg, but stood with the children, sullen, angry. He, too, might have been some twelve or fourteen years of age, but whereas the blond girl was lusciously, incipiently a female, he was only still a boy. He was not yet old enough to run with the hunters. He did not have the great leap of growth yet that would bring his body to the pitch at which he might follow the pace of the older men, in their long hunts, hanging behind them, learning the smells and signs of the forest. He was two inches shorter than the girl, and less heavy. He was still slight, still a boy. But Hamilton saw that he was proud, defiant. The girl, arrogantly, threw the meat to the other children, giving more or less as the child was or was not one of her favorites. Much of the meat she ate herself. The younger children leaped and cried, and she would throw them a piece of meat. The boy cried out angrily, demanding food. She paid him no attention. She ignored his outstretched hand. Then, angrily, he tried to snatch a piece of meat and she struck him, screaming, and drove him from the meat, hitting him, kicking at him. He fell to the ground. She kicked him and turned away from him. She returned to the meat and, pulling it apart, ate some herself, and threw other pieces to the children. One piece, dark with gristle, she threw to the dirt before the boy, and stood up, head high, wiping her hands on her thighs.
Hamilton saw that there were five women behind the leader, and first among them was the lame, scarred woman, who had so terrified her.
The leader, over his shoulder, handed back meat to the lame woman, who took it, eating some, distributing other portions to the other women. Behind each hunter there knelt one or more women, waiting to be fed. After a time the hunters, growing heavy with food, grease on their hands and bodies, juice at their mouths, began to hand meat back to the women. Some of the women, from time to time, would whimper, and point to their mouths, indicating their hunger. Most of the women seemed to have hunters who fed them. The young man who was the son of the leader gave meat to,, the older blond girl, who was muchly beautiful, and clung much to him, she whom Hamilton would learn was Flower. Her own hunter, to her anger, was feeding the dark-haired woman and the shorter blond woman. Sometimes he would hand them meat, sometimes he would hold it in his hand, or mouth, and make them take it in their teeth. He did not so much as look at Hamilton. “I am hungry,” she thought. “I am hungry.”
She saw that two of the women were nursing infants. They, like the others, knelt behind men, begging their food. Hamilton saw two other women, to her irritation, lying on their backs, holding out their hands to hunters, lifting their bodies to them. “Filthy bitches,” thought Hamilton. “Prostitutes! Whores!” She was furious that they would offer their bodies to the hunters’ pleasure, merely to be fed. “Whores!” thought Hamilton. Then Hamilton saw, too, that now one of the mothers, her infant in the arms of another, was lying before a hunter, lifting her body. Hamilton turned away. “I hate men,” she thought. “I hate them.”
She saw meat thrown to the women who lifted their bodies. Other women, still hungry, now lifted their bodies to the men. Some others crawled to them, and kissed them, about the ankles. Many had meat thrust in their mouths.
Hamilton turned away, disgusted. “They are slaves, the females are slaves,” she thought.
But the high females, like the lame woman, and those others, behind the leader, seemed to feed well. Their importance, their prestige, Hamilton thought, is a function of the males with whom they associate themselves. If one would be a high female, one must well please a high male. But the lame, scarred woman was not truly attractive, and yet she knelt behind the leader himself, behind his left shoulder. In some important way, Hamilton thought, she must serve him well. She shuddered as she thought what must be the menace, the power, of the lame, scarred woman.
She saw the young blond girl, Butterfly, walking among the group. She saw the leader’s eyes, narrow, watching her.