THE SHELTERS OF STONE

The ground was covered with mats, many of them woven with intricate and beautiful patterns, and various pads, pillows, and stools used for seating were scattered around near several low tables of various sizes. Most of them were graced with oil lamps usually made of sandstone or limestone that were, as a rule, lit day and night inside the windowless shelter, many with multiple wicks. Most of the lamps were carefully shaped, smoothed, and decorated, but like the lamps in Marthona's dwelling, some were crude stones with naturally formed or roughly pecked-out depressions for the melted tallow. Near many of the lamps she saw small carvings of women, propped up in woven bowls of sand. They were all similar, yet different. She had seen several like them and knew they were representations of the Great Earth Mother, what Jondalar called donii.

The donii ranged in size from about four inches to eight inches in height, but each one could be held in a hand. There was some abstraction and exaggeration. The arms and hands were barely suggested, and the legs tapered together with no real feet so the woman figure could be stuck into the ground, or a bowl of sand, and stand upright. It was not a carving of a particular person, there were no features to give identity, though the body may have been suggested by a woman known to the artist. She was not a high-breasted, nubile young woman, at the beginning of her adult life, nor was hers the lean figure of a woman who walked every day, a peripatetic wanderer constantly foraging for food.

A donii depicted a richly obese woman with some experience in living. She was not pregnant, but she had been. Her broad buttocks were matched by huge breasts that hung down over the large, somewhat drooping stomach of a woman who had given birth to and nurtured several children. She had the ample figure of an experienced older woman, a mother, but her shape suggested much more than the fertility of procreation. In order for a woman to be fat, food had to be plentiful and she had to lead a fairly sedentary life. The small carved figure was meant to look like a well-fed, successful mother who provided for her children; she was a symbol of plenty and generosity.

The reality was not too far off. Some years were worse than others, but most of the time, the Zelandonii managed fairly well. There were fat women in the community; the carver of the figures had to know how a fat woman looked to depict her in such faithful detail. Late spring, when the food stored for winter was nearly gone and the new plants had barely sprouted, could be a lean time. The same was true for animals; in spring, they were scrawny and thin, and their meat was stringy and tough with so little fat, even the marrow in their bones was depleted. Then, the people may have done without certain foods, but they did not starve, at least not usually.

To those who lived off the land, hunted and foraged for everything they required to survive, the earth was like a great mother who nourished her children. She gave them what they needed. They did not plant seeds, tend crops, cultivate or water the land, and they did not herd animals, protect them from predators, gather feed for them for winter. Everything was theirs for the taking, if they knew where to look and how to harvest. But they could not take it for granted, because sometimes it was withheld.

Each donii they carved was a receptacle for the spirit of the Great Earth Mother, and a manifest demonstration to inform the unseen forces that controlled their lives what they needed to survive. She was sympathetic magic, meant to show the Mother what they wanted, and therefore extract it from Her. The donii was a representation of the hope that edible plants would be profuse and easy to find and gather, that the animals would be abundant and easily hunted. She was a symbol of and a plea for an earth that was generous, a land that was rich, food that was plentiful, and life that was good. The donii was an idealized figure, an evocation of the conditions that they earnestly desired.

"I would like to thank Ayla…"

She was startled out of her daydreaming when she heard the sound of her name. She couldn't even remember what she was thinking about.

"… for her willingness to show this new way of making fire to all the zelandonia, and for her patience with some of us who took a little longer to learn," the One Who Was First said.

There were many voices in agreement, even the Zelandoni of the Fourteenth Cave seemed to be genuine in her appreciation. Then they began to discuss the details of the rest of the ceremony to start off this year's Summer Meeting, and other ceremonial occasions coming up, particularly the mating ceremony known as the Matrimonial. Ayla wished they would talk more about that, but primarily they talked about when they would meet again to discuss it further, Then the focus of the meeting shifted to the acolytes.