a say in the marriage. So after all, my hasty act had harmed me.
Yet very late that night, as I lay on my back in the cave, my stomach filled with mammoth meat and my ears filled with the praise of cheerful, meat-satisfied people, I knew my night's hunting had also done me good. In-laws may not want you if you can't get ivory, but their daughters won't want you if you can't get meat.
8
B EFORE THE MOON OF GRASS grew round and rose at sunset, we had eaten the legs and rump of the little mammoth, and by the time the moon grew thin and rose into the dawn, we had finished the upper haunch of the female and had cleaned her thighbone to the knee. When I remember that summer, I remember eating. I remember my stomach feeling tight with meat.
At night we slept with our ears open, listening for lions in the ravine, planning to drive them off our mammoths with fire and stones. But only one old lion came. Sometimes we met him near the carcass, but he didn't bother us and we didn't bother him. The other lions, a pride who used our part of the river, stayed in the east, where that year the grazing animals stayed.
During the Moon of Grass we set snares along the riverbank to catch the foxes, hyenas, and wolves who came for a share of the meat; we caught several, which kept the women busy scraping and softening the skins. Late one afternoon a bear came. Some of us took spears and went quietly into the ravine, letting ourselves down the steep sides, not using the trail. The bear was partly inside the carcass, eating. We crept around him and all together threw our spears into him. That was funny! On the far side of me was Andriki. Suddenly his spear flew past me. He had missed the bear and almost hit me! We laughed at him for that. We took the skin.
By day we cut and dried strips of mammoth meat, and strips of bear meat too. When the strips were ready, long and hard like sticks of wood, we stacked them in the back of the cave. But soon we had more than we needed. The summer is short; in autumn we walk back to our winter lodges. What use did we have for more meat than we could carry?
We were very happy during the Moon of Grassâwe men were. After sunrise we would go to our lookout in a group of scattered boulders at the edge of the ravine. Here we would build a fire and spend the day. If the sun was hot the boulders gave cool shade, and if the wind was cold the boulders gave shelter and warmth as they threw back the heat of the fire. From that place we could see everything that happened up and down the river and out across the plain.
Every morning some of us would gather dry bones or dung or grass or sticks for fuel while others would visit the bear and the mammoths, swat off the great noisy swarms of flies, and cut strips of meat. All day among the boulders we cooked and ate while we worked stones or carved ivory. As we worked we talked of women, of hunting, and of strange things we had seen. Andriki told of Uske's Spring and how he and I had spent a night inside the mammoth carcass. Such talk was exciting, so we laughed a lot. Nothing disturbed us. Even when a man I didn't know came from the east and sat down among us, complaining that we should have waited for him before killing the mammoths so that he too could have earned some ivory for his marriage exchange, we felt no trouble, because he was Kida, half-brother to Maral, full brother to Father. Father said, "Think before speaking! You give ivory to your wife's parents, but now let your mind's eye follow that ivory. Your in-laws would give it for their son's wife, but here her only kin are my wives. So if you had gotten ivory, some would have come to me! This way I have my share already."
"Then you excuse the debt to your wife?" asked Kida.
We all laughed, even Father. "Ah? You want to trick me," he said.
***
So it was with the menâeasy with each other, and sure that much good hunting was to come. On the plains to the east of us, Kida had been burning off the grass so
Yet very late that night, as I lay on my back in the cave, my stomach filled with mammoth meat and my ears filled with the praise of cheerful, meat-satisfied people, I knew my night's hunting had also done me good. In-laws may not want you if you can't get ivory, but their daughters won't want you if you can't get meat.
8
B EFORE THE MOON OF GRASS grew round and rose at sunset, we had eaten the legs and rump of the little mammoth, and by the time the moon grew thin and rose into the dawn, we had finished the upper haunch of the female and had cleaned her thighbone to the knee. When I remember that summer, I remember eating. I remember my stomach feeling tight with meat.
At night we slept with our ears open, listening for lions in the ravine, planning to drive them off our mammoths with fire and stones. But only one old lion came. Sometimes we met him near the carcass, but he didn't bother us and we didn't bother him. The other lions, a pride who used our part of the river, stayed in the east, where that year the grazing animals stayed.
During the Moon of Grass we set snares along the riverbank to catch the foxes, hyenas, and wolves who came for a share of the meat; we caught several, which kept the women busy scraping and softening the skins. Late one afternoon a bear came. Some of us took spears and went quietly into the ravine, letting ourselves down the steep sides, not using the trail. The bear was partly inside the carcass, eating. We crept around him and all together threw our spears into him. That was funny! On the far side of me was Andriki. Suddenly his spear flew past me. He had missed the bear and almost hit me! We laughed at him for that. We took the skin.
By day we cut and dried strips of mammoth meat, and strips of bear meat too. When the strips were ready, long and hard like sticks of wood, we stacked them in the back of the cave. But soon we had more than we needed. The summer is short; in autumn we walk back to our winter lodges. What use did we have for more meat than we could carry?
We were very happy during the Moon of Grassâwe men were. After sunrise we would go to our lookout in a group of scattered boulders at the edge of the ravine. Here we would build a fire and spend the day. If the sun was hot the boulders gave cool shade, and if the wind was cold the boulders gave shelter and warmth as they threw back the heat of the fire. From that place we could see everything that happened up and down the river and out across the plain.
Every morning some of us would gather dry bones or dung or grass or sticks for fuel while others would visit the bear and the mammoths, swat off the great noisy swarms of flies, and cut strips of meat. All day among the boulders we cooked and ate while we worked stones or carved ivory. As we worked we talked of women, of hunting, and of strange things we had seen. Andriki told of Uske's Spring and how he and I had spent a night inside the mammoth carcass. Such talk was exciting, so we laughed a lot. Nothing disturbed us. Even when a man I didn't know came from the east and sat down among us, complaining that we should have waited for him before killing the mammoths so that he too could have earned some ivory for his marriage exchange, we felt no trouble, because he was Kida, half-brother to Maral, full brother to Father. Father said, "Think before speaking! You give ivory to your wife's parents, but now let your mind's eye follow that ivory. Your in-laws would give it for their son's wife, but here her only kin are my wives. So if you had gotten ivory, some would have come to me! This way I have my share already."
"Then you excuse the debt to your wife?" asked Kida.
We all laughed, even Father. "Ah? You want to trick me," he said.
***
So it was with the menâeasy with each other, and sure that much good hunting was to come. On the plains to the east of us, Kida had been burning off the grass so
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