The Clan of the Cave Bear

by Jean M. Auel

  Droog lifted the girl from her mother’s lap, and holding her close to him, carried her back to the camp. Contrary to custom, Aga walked by his side, patting and caressing the daughter she thought she had lost.

  People stared, pointedly stared, at Ayla as she walked by. No one had ever been saved before, once they had been swept away. It was a miracle that Ona had been rescued. Never again would a member of Brun’s clan look at her with deriding gestures when she indulged in her particular idiosyncrasy. It’s her luck, they said. She always was lucky. Didn’t she find the cave?

  The fish were still flopping spasmodically on the beach. A few had managed to find their way back into the stream after the clan realized what happened and raced to meet Ayla returning with the half-drowned girl, but most of the fish were still tangled under the net. The clan went back to the task of hauling them in, then the men clubbed them into stillness and the women began to clean them.

  “A female!” Ebra shouted as she slit open the belly of a huge beluga sturgeon. They all raced toward the big fish.

  “Look at it all!” Vorn motioned and reached for a handful of the tiny black eggs. Fresh caviar was a treat they all relished. Usually, everyone grabbed handfuls from the first female sturgeon caught and gorged themselves. Later catches would be salted and preserved for future use, but it was never quite as good as it was fresh from the sea. Ebra stopped the boy and motioned to Ayla.

  “Ayla, you take first,” Ebra gestured.

  She looked around, embarrassed to be the center of attention.

  “Yes, Ayla take first,” others joined in.

  The girl looked at Brun. He nodded. She walked forward shyly and reached for a handful of shiny black caviar, then stood up and took a taste. Ebra signaled and everyone dived in and grabbed a share, crowding around the fish happily. They had been spared a tragedy, and in their relief, it felt like a holiday.

  Ayla walked slowly back to their shelter. She knew she had been honored. Taking small bites, she savored the rich caviar and savored the warm glow of their acceptance. It was a feeling she would never forget.

  After the fish had been landed and clubbed, the men stood aside in their inevitable knot leaving cleaning and preserving to the women. Besides the sharp flint knives used to open the fish and filet the large ones, they had a special tool for scraping off scales. It was a knife that was not only blunted along the back so it could be held easily in the hand, but a notch had been knocked off the pointed tip where the index finger was placed to control pressure so the scales could be scraped away without tearing the skin of the fish.

  The clan’s net brought in more than sturgeon. Cod, freshwater carp, a few large trout, even some crustaceans were part of the haul. Birds drawn by the fish gathered to gorge on the entrails, stealing a few filets when they could get close enough. After the fish were set out to dry in the air or over smoky fires, the net was strung out over them. It allowed the net to dry and showed where repairs were needed, and it kept the birds from snatching the clan’s hard-won catch.

  Before they were through fishing, they would all be tired of the taste, and smell, of fish, but on the first night it was a welcome treat and they always feasted together. The fish saved for the celebration, mostly cod whose delicate white flesh was a particular favorite when fresh, were wrapped in a bed of fresh grass and large green leaves and set over hot coals. Although nothing was said explicitly, Ayla knew this feast was in her honor. She was the recipient of many choice morsels urged on her by the women and a whole filet prepared with special care by Aga.

  The sun had disappeared in the west and most people had straggled off to their own shelters. Iza and Aba were talking on one side of the large bonfire, died down to embers, while Ayla and Aga sat silently watching Ona and Uba play. Aga’s year-old son, Groob, was sleeping peacefully in her arms, contentedly full of warm milk.

  “Ayla,” the woman began, a little hesitantly. “I want you to know something. I have not always been nice to you.”

  “Aga, you have always been courteous,” Ayla interrupted.

  “That is not the same as nice,” Aga said. “I talked to Droog. He has grown fond of my daughter, even though she was born to the hearth of my first mate. He never had a girl at his fire before. Droog says you will always carry a part of Ona’s spirit with you. I don’t really understand the ways of the spirits, but Droog says whenever a hunter saves the life of another hunter, he keeps a piece of the spirit of the man he saved. They become something like siblings, like brothers. I’m glad you share Ona’s spirit, Ayla. I’m glad she is still here to share it with you. If I am ever fortunate enough to have another child, and if it is a girl, Droog has promised to name her Ayla.”

  Ayla was stunned. She didn’t know how to respond. “Aga, that is too great an honor. Ayla is not a Clan name.”

  “It is now,” Aga said.

  The woman rose, motioned to Ona, and started toward her shelter. She turned back for a moment. “I am going now,” she said.

  It was the closest gesture people of the Clan had for “good-bye.” Most often that was omitted; they simply left. The Clan had no term for “thank you” either. They understood gratitude, but that carried a different connotation, generally a sense of obligation, usually from a person of lesser status. They helped each other because it was their way of life, their duty, necessary for survival, and no thanks were expected or received. Special gifts or favors carried the onus of obligation to return them with something of like value; this was understood and no thanks were necessary. As long as Ona lived, unless an occasion arose where she, or, until she came of age, her mother, could return the favor in kind and secure a piece of Ayla’s spirit, she would be in Ayla’s debt. Aga’s offer was not the return of an obligation, it was more, it was her way of saying thank you.

  Aba got up to leave shortly after her daughter had gone. “Iza always said you were lucky,” the old woman gestured as she passed the girl. “I believe it now.”

  Ayla walked over and sat beside Iza after Aba left. “Iza, Aga told me I will always carry a piece of Ona’s spirit with me, but I only brought her back, you were the one who made her breathe again. You saved her life as much as I did. Don’t you carry a part of her spirit, too?” the girl asked. “You must carry pieces of many spirits, you have saved many lives.”

  “Why do you suppose a medicine woman has status of her own, Ayla? It’s because she carries part of the spirits of all her clan, both men and women. Of the whole Clan for that matter, through her own clan. She helps bring them into this world and cares for them all through their lives. When a woman becomes a medicine woman, she is given that piece of the spirit from everyone, even those whose life she hasn’t saved, because she never knows when she will.

  “When a person dies and goes to the world of the spirits,” Iza continued, “the medicine woman loses a part of her spirit. Some believe it makes a medicine woman try harder, but most of them would try just as hard anyway. Not every woman can be a medicine woman, not even every daughter of one. There must be something inside that makes her want to help people. You have it, Ayla, that’s why I’ve been training you. I saw it from the first when you wanted to help the rabbit after Uba was born. And you didn’t stop to think of the danger to yourself when you went after Ona, you just wanted to save her life. The medicine women of my line have the highest status. When you become a medicine woman, Ayla, you will be of my line.”

  “But I’m not really your daughter, Iza. You’re the only mother I remember, but I wasn’t born to you. How can I be of your line? I don’t have your memories. I don’t really understand what memories are.”

  “My line has the highest status because they have always been the best. My mother, and her mother, and hers before for as long as I can remember have always been the best. Each one passed on what they knew and learned. You are Clan, Ayla, my daughter, trained by me. You will have all the knowledge I can give you. It may not be all I know—I don’t know myself how much I know—but it will be enough b
ecause there is something else. You have a gift, Ayla, I think you must come from your own line of medicine women. You are going to be very good someday.

  “You don’t have the memories, child, but you have a way of thinking, a way of understanding what is hurting someone. If you know what’s hurting, then you can help, and you have a way of knowing how to help. I never told you to put snow on Brun’s arm when Oga burned it. I might have done the same thing, but I never told you. Your gift, your talent, may be as good as memories, maybe better, I don’t know. But a good medicine woman is a good medicine woman. That’s what is important. You will be of my line because you are going to be a good medicine woman, Ayla. You will be worthy of the status, you will be one of the best.”

  The clan fell into a regular routine. They made only one catch a day, but it was enough to keep the women busy until late afternoon. There were no further mishaps, though Ona did not help the beaters herd fish anymore. Droog decided she was still too young, next year would be soon enough. Toward the end of the sturgeon run, the catches got smaller and the women had more time to relax in the afternoons. It was just as well. It took a few days for the fish to dry and the row of racks stretching across the beach grew longer every day.

  Droog had scoured the floodplain of the stream for the nodules of flint that had washed down the mountain, and dragged several back to the campsite. On several afternoons he could be seen knapping new tools. One afternoon not long before they planned to leave, Ayla saw Droog take a bundle from his shelter to a driftwood log nearby where he usually made his tools. She loved to watch him work the flint and followed him, then sat in front of him with her head bowed.

  “This girl would like to watch, if the tool maker does not object,” she motioned when Droog acknowledged her.

  “Hhmmmf,” he nodded in agreement. She found herself a place on the log to sit quietly and observe.

  The girl had watched him before. Droog knew she was genuinely interested and would not interfere with his concentration. If only Vorn showed as much interest, he thought. None of the youngsters in the clan had shown a real aptitude for toolmaking, and like any really skilled technician, he wanted to share his knowledge and pass it on.

  Maybe Groob will have the interest, he thought. He was pleased that his new mate had given birth to a boy so soon after Ona was weaned. Droog had never had such a full hearth, but he was glad he had decided to take Aga and her two children. Even the old woman wasn’t so bad to have around—Aba often took care of his needs when Aga was busy with the baby. Aga didn’t have the quiet understanding depth of Goov’s mother, and Droog had to exert himself in the beginning to let her know her place. But she was young and healthy and had produced a son, a boy Droog had high hopes he could train to be a toolmaker. He had learned the stone knapper’s art from the mate of his mother’s mother, and understood, now, the old man’s pleasure when, as a young boy, he had become interested in developing the skill.

  But Ayla had watched him often since she came to live with the clan, and he had seen the tools she made. She was adept with her hands, applied the techniques well. Women were free to make tools so long as they did not make any implements whose ultimate purpose was as a weapon or to make weapons. There just wasn’t much value in training a girl, and she would never be a real expert; but she had some skill, made very serviceable tools, and a female apprentice was better than none at all. He had explained something of his craft to her before.

  The toolmaker opened the bundle and spread out the leather hide that held the tools of his trade. He looked at Ayla and decided to give her the benefit of some useful knowledge about stone. He picked up a piece he had discarded the day before. Through long years of trial and error, Droog’s forebears had learned that flint had the right combination of properties to make the best tools.

  Ayla watched with rapt attention while he explained. First a stone had to be hard enough to cut, scrape, or split a variety of animal and vegetable materials. Many of the siliceous minerals of the quartz family had the necessary hardness, but flint had another quality that most of them, and many stones made of softer minerals, did not have. Flint was brittle; it would break under pressure or percussion. Ayla jumped back with a start when Droog demonstrated by bashing the flawed stone against another, breaking it in two and exposing material of a different nature in the heart of the shiny dark gray flint.

  Droog didn’t quite know how to explain the third quality, though he understood it at the deep gut level that came from working with the stone for so long. The quality that made his craft possible was the way the stone broke, and the homogeneity of flint made the difference.

  Most minerals break along plane surfaces parallel to their crystal structure, which means they would only fracture in certain directions, and a flint worker could not shape them for specific uses. When he could find it, Droog sometimes used obsidian, the black glass of volcanic eruptions, even though it was much softer than many minerals. It did not have a well-defined crystal structure, and he could break it easily in any direction, homogeneously.

  The crystal structure of flint, though well-defined, was so small it was homogeneous too, the only limitation to shaping it being the skill of the knapper, and that was Droog’s special talent. Yet flint was hard enough to cut through thick hides or tough stringy plants, and brittle enough to break with an edge as sharp as a broken piece of glass. To show her, Droog picked up one of the pieces of the flawed stone and pointed to an edge. She didn’t need to touch it to know how sharp it was; she had used knives equally as sharp many times.

  Droog thought of his years of experience that had honed the knowledge passed on to him as he dropped the broken piece and spread the leather hide across his lap. A good knapper’s ability began with selection. It took a practiced eye to distinguish minor color variations in the chalky outer covering that pointed to high-quality, fine-grained flint. It took time to develop a sense that nodules in one location were better, fresher, less subject to inclusions of foreign materials, than stones from a different location. Perhaps someday he’d have a real apprentice who would have his appreciation for those finer details.

  Ayla thought he had forgotten her as he set out his implements, carefully examined the stones, then sat quietly holding his amulet with his eyes closed. It surprised her when he began to talk with unspoken gestures.

  “The tools I am going to make are very important. Brun has decided we will hunt mammoth. In the fall, after the leaves have turned, we will travel far to the north to find the mammoth. We must be very lucky for the hunt to be successful; the spirits must favor it. The knives I am going to make will be used as weapons and the other tools to make weapons especially for the hunt. Mog-ur will make a powerful charm to bring luck to them, but first the tools must be made. If the making goes well, it will be a good sign.”

  Ayla wasn’t sure if Droog was talking to her or just stating the facts so he would have them clearly in his mind before he began. It made her even more conscious that she must remain very still and do nothing to disturb Droog while he worked. She half expected him to tell her to go, now that she knew the importance of the tools he was about to make.

  What he didn’t know was that from the time she had shown Brun the cave, Droog thought she carried luck with her, and saving Ona’s life confirmed his conviction. He thought of the strange girl as an unusual stone or tooth that one received from his totem and carried in his amulet for good luck. He wasn’t sure if she herself was lucky, only that she brought luck, and her asking to watch at this particular time he considered propitious. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that she reached for her amulet as he picked up the first nodule. Though he didn’t define it to himself in precisely that way, he felt she was bringing the luck of her powerful totem to bear on his endeavor, and he welcomed it.

  Droog was sitting on the ground, a leather hide draped across his lap, holding a nodule of flint in his left hand. He reached for an oval-shaped stone and hefted it until it felt comfortable in his hand. He
had searched long for a hammerstone with just the right feel and resiliency and had had this one for many years. The many nicks on it attested to its long use. With the hammerstone, Droog broke off the chalky gray outer covering exposing the dark gray flint underneath. He stopped and examined the flint critically. The grain was right, the color was good, there were no inclusions. Then he began roughing out the basic shape of a hand-axe. The thick flakes that fell off had sharp edges; many would be used as cutting implements just as they fell from the stone. The end of each flake where the striker hit the flint had a heavy bulge that tapered to a thinner cross section at the opposite end, and each piece that fell off left a deep rippled scar on the flint core.

  Droog put the hammerstone down and picked up a section of bone. Taking careful aim, he struck the flint core very close to the sharp rippled edge. The softer, more elastic bone hammer caused longer, thinner flakes, with a flatter bulb of percussion and straighter edges, to fall away from the flint core, and it did not crush the sharp thin edge as the harder stone striker would have.

  In a few moments, Droog held up the finished product. The tool was about five inches long, pointed at one end, with straight cutting edges, a relatively thin cross section, and faces that were smooth with only shallow facets showing where the flakes had been chipped away. It could be held in the hand and used to chop wood like an axe, or to hollow out a wooden bowl from a section of log like an adze, or to chop off a piece of mammoth ivory, or to break the bones of animals when butchering, or for any of the many uses to which a sharp hitting instrument could be put.

  It was an ancient tool, and Droog’s ancestors had been producing similar hand-axes for millennia. A simpler form was one of the earliest tools ever devised, and it was still useful. He rummaged through the pile of flakes, picking out several with wide straight cutting edges and setting them aside to be used for cleavers useful in butchering and cutting through tough hides. The hand-axe was only a warm-up exercise. Droog turned his attention next to another nodule of flint, one he had selected for its particularly fine grain. He would apply a more advanced and difficult technique to this one.