#0013: Earth's Children Series #5: The Shelters of Stone, by Jean M. Auel

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Earth’s Children #5:
The Shelters of Stone
by Jean M. Auel

p.21 Suddenly Ayla was reminded of Iza, the woman of the Clan who had been like a mother to her. Iza also knew many secrets, yet, like the rest of the clan, she didn’t lie. With a language of gestures, and nuances conveyed by postures and expressions, they couldn’t lie. It would be known immediately. But they could refrain from mentioning. Though it might be understood that something was being held back, it was allowed, for the sake of privacy.

p.76-77 Ayla had grown up among the Clan thinking of herself as big and ugly because, although she was thinner-boned than the women of the Clan, she was taller than the men, and she looked different, both in their eyes and her own. She was more accustomed to judging beauty in terms of the stronger features of the Clan, with their long broad faces and sloped-back foreheads, heavy overhanging brow ridges, sharp, prominent noses, and large, richly colored brown eyes. Her own blue-gray eyes seemed faded in comparison.
     After she had lived among the Others for a while, she didn’t feel that she looked so strange anymore, but she still could not see herself as beautiful, though Jondalar had told her often enough that she was. She knew what was considered attractive to the Clan, she didn’t quite know how to define beauty in terms of the Others. To her, Jondalar, with his masculine and therefore stronger features and vivid blue eyes was far more beautiful than she.

p.139 She had met so many people, it was hard to remember them all, but Jondalar was right: most people were not bad. I shouldn’t let the few who are unpleasant--Marona, and Brukeval when he behaved like Broud--spoil good feelings toward the rest. I wonder why it’s easier to remember the bad ones. Maybe because there aren’t many.

p.257 “When a child is born, it is filled with élan, the Vital force of life,” the One Who Was First said. “When a child is named, a Zelandoni creates a mark that is a symbol for that spirit, that new person, and paints it or carves it on some object--a rock, a bone, a piece of wood. That mark is called an abelan. Each ablean is different and is used to designate a particular individual. It might be a design made of lines or shapes or dots, or a simplified form of an animal. Whatever comes to mind when the Zelandoni meditates about the infant.”

p.274-275 “I was thinking,” Ayla said, still avoiding Jondalar’s amorous glances and trying to be serious, “that cleansing foam could be very good for purifying. Some Losadunai women showed me how to make it, but it can be tricky, and doesn’t always work. Maybe I should try to make some to show Zelandoni.”
     “I can’t imagine how fat and ashes can make someone clean,” Folara said.
     “I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it,” Ayla said, “but if you mix them together in a certain way, something happens and you don’t have fat and ashes anymore, but something else. You have to add water to the ashes, cook it awhile, then let it cool before you strain it. It becomes very strong, it can burn you if you are not careful. It is like the part of fire that burns you, but without heat. Then you add melted fat to it, about the same amount of fat as there is liquid, but both the fat and the strained liquid must have the same feeling of heat as the skin at the inside of your wrist. If you’ve done everything right, when you mix it around, it makes a foam that can clean almost anything. You rinse the foam away, and it takes dirt with it. It can even take grease away.”
     “Why would someone decide to put fat and ash-water together in the first place?” Folara asked.
     “The woman who told me about it said it was an accident the first time she did it,” Ayla explained. “She’d been cooking or rendering some fat over a fire-pit when it started to rain very hard. She ran to get under cover. When she went back, she thought the fat was ruined. It had overflowed into the fire pit that had been full of ashes and had filled up with rain. Then she saw the spoon she’d been using to stir it. It had taken a long time to carve and was a favorite of hers, so she decided to retrieve it. She reached through a slippery foam that she thought was ruined fat to get the spoon, and when she went to clean the foam off, she discovered it not only rinsed away easily, but it left her hand and the spoon clean.”
     Ayla didn’t know that the lye leached from wood ashes when mixed with fat at a certain temperature, caused a chemical reaction that created soap. She didn’t need to know why the process made a cleansing foam, she just knew that it did. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, that a discovery was made by accident.

p.297 He smiled when he saw Ayla coming toward him. When they met, he greeted her with a touching of cheeks and noticed her womanly scent. It made him remember that the hadn’t slept with her the night before. He felt a sudden desire to take her back to bed and do more than sleep.

p.385 Ayla had long ago accepted the fact that she would never know the people to whom she was born, and realized that it didn’t matter. When she was living with the Clan, she had wanted to be one of them, a woman of the Clan, which clan was not important. But when she finally understood that she was not Clan, and never would be, then the only distinction that mattered was that she was one of the Others, in her mind, kin to all of the Others. She had been happy to be Mamutoi, the people who had adopted her, and she would have been content to be Sharamudoi, the people who had asked Jondalar and her to stay with them. She wanted to be Zelandonii only because they were any better than, or even very different from, any of the Others.

p.390 “Jondalar, I think we’re going to have some long talks. I wonder just what else you haven’t told me. You go off on a Journey and return with horses that carry you on their backs, a wolf that lets children pull its fur, powerful new throwing weapons, magic stones that make instant fire, stories about intelligent flatheads, and a beautiful woman who knows their language and learned healing from them. Are you sure there isn’t something else you’ve forgotten to tell me?” Joharran said.

p.393 The River from the highlands on both sides, and climbed up the highlands in a gradual slope. However, after a short distance, water hugged steep cliffs on the other side, the left bank, which was on the right-hand side as one traveled toward the source. “Left bank” and “right bank” were terms that always referred to the sides of rivers when going downstream in the direction of the flowing current. They were traveling upstream.

p.487-488 She watched Wolf poking his nose into every little crack and cranny, and smiled. Ayla was glad he was with her. Although she was unaccustomed to so many people, especially all at one time and in one place, she didn’t really want to be alone. She’d had her fill of that in the valley she found after she left the Clan, and she wasn’t sure she could have stood it if it hadn’t been for Whinney and, later, Baby for company. Even with them it had been lonely, but she knew how to obtain food and make the things she needed, and she had learned the joy of utter freedom--and its consequences. For the first time, she could do whatever she wanted, even adopt a baby horse or lion. Living alone, dependent entirely on herself, had taught her that one person could live, for a while, in reasonable comfort if she was young, and healthy, and strong. It was only when she became seriously ill that she realized how vulnerable she was.
     It was then that Ayla fully understood that she would not have been alive if the Clan had not allowed an injured and weak little girl, orphaned by an earthquake, to live with them, though she had been born to the ones they knew as Others. Later, when she and Jondalar lived with the Mamutoi, she came to realize that living with a group, any group, even one that believed the wishes and desires of individuals were important, limited individual freedom, because the needs of the community were equally important. Survival depended on a cooperative unit, a Clan or a Camp or a Cave, a group that would work together and help each other. There was always a struggle between the individual and the group, and finding a workable balance was a constant challenge, but not without benefits.

p.560 In addition to meat, hides were extremely important. They were used for many things from implements and containers to clothing and shelters. Fat would be rendered for heat and light and sustenance; hair for fibers and stuffing; tendons for sinew to make cordage and lashings for various constructions. Horns would be used to make containers, various devices such as hinges on panels, and eve jewelry. Teeth were used as often for jewelry as they were for tools. Intestines could be made into waterproof coverings and clothing, and casings for sausage and fat.
     Bones had many uses. They could be made into utensils and plates, carvings, and weapons, cracked for their nutritious marrow, or burned in hearths for fuel. Nothing would be wasted. Even the hooves and scraps of hides would be boiled for glues and adhesives, which had many uses. In combination with sinew, for example, it would help attach points to spears, handles to knives, and join composite spear shafts. It would also be used to join tough soles to softer foot coverings.

NAMES: Lanoga, Brameval, Kareja, Stelona, Shevola, Tremeda, Bologan, Mejera, Ranokol, Relona, Jonokol, Thefona, Shevonar, Kimeran, Marolan, Dorova, Solaban, Manvelar, Ramara, Robenan, Echozar, Joplaya, Jaradal, Brukeval, Matumo, Bologan, Portula, Lorava, Wylopa, Ramila, Galeya, Marona, Tivonan, Guban, Yorga, Madenia, Bodoa, Joconan, Dalanar, Jerika, Laduni, Losadunai, Jemara, Rushemar, Jondé, Willamar, Joharran, Folara, Denanna, Ladroman, Madroman, Marsola, Levela, Lanidar, Mardena, Tormaden, Denoda, Velima, Janida, Peridal, Jondecam, Jochaman, Ahnlay, Matagan, Tishona, Dynoda Dacsoman, Bodoa, Jonayla