"Yes, they are. The Sungaea are related to the Mamutoi, more closely than some people want to admit," Mamut said. "There are some differences, but this burial ceremony is very much like ours."

"Why would they put Speaking Staffs in a grave with children?"

"They are given those things which they will need when they wake up in the spirit world. As the daughter and son of the headwoman, they are a sister and brother who were destined to become co-leaders, if not in this lifetime, then the next," Mamut explained. "It is necessary to show their rank so they do not lose status there."

Ayla watched for a while, then, when they started to put the dirt back in, she spoke to Mamut again.

"Why are they buried like that, head to head?"

"They are brother and sister," he said, as though the rest was self-explanatory. Then he saw her puzzled expression and continued, "It can be a long, difficult, and confusing Journey to the spirit world, especially for those who are so young. They need to be able to communicate, to help and comfort each other, but it is an abomination to the Mother for a brother and sister to share Pleasures. If they wake up side by side, they may forget they are brother and sister, and couple by mistake, thinking they were sleeping together because they were meant to be joined. Head to head, they can encourage each other on the Journey, and still not be confused about their relationship when they reach the other place."

Ayla nodded. It seemed logical, but as she watched the grave being filled in, she fervently wished they had gotten there a few days sooner. Maybe she couldn't have helped, but she could have tried.

Talut stopped at the edge of a small waterway, looked upstream and then downstream, then consulted the marked piece of ivory he held in his hand. He checked the position of the sun, studied some cloud formations in the north, and sniffed the wind. Finally he examined the area nearby.

"We camp here for the night," he said, shrugging off his haversack and packframe. He walked toward his sister as she was deciding where the primary tent would be placed, so the adjoining ones that utilized part of the same structural supports would have plenty of level ground. "Tulie, what would you say to stopping to do a little trading? I was looking at these maps Ludeg made. It didn't occur to me at first, but seeing where we are, look," he said, showing her two different pieces of ivory with marks scratched on them, "here's the map showing the way to Wolf Camp, the new location of the Summer Meeting, and here's the quick one he made showing the way to the Sungaea Camp. From here, it wouldn't be much out of our way to visit Mammoth Camp."

"You mean Musk-Ox Camp," Tulie said, with annoyed disdain. "It was presumptuous of them to rename their Camp. Everyone has a Mammoth Hearth, but no one should name a Camp for the mammoth. Aren't we all Mammoth Hunters?"

"But Camps are always named after the headman's hearth, and their new headman is their Mamut. Besides, that doesn't mean we can't trade with them – if they are not gone for the summer. You know they are related to Amber Camp, and they always have some amber to trade," Talut said, knowing his sister's weakness for the warm, gold-hued stones of petrified resin. "Wymez says they have access to good flint, too. We have plenty of reindeer hides, not to mention some nice furs."

"I don't know how a man can establish a hearth when he doesn't even have a woman, but I just said they were presumptuous. We can still trade with them. Of course we should stop, Talut." The headwoman's expression changed to an enigmatic smile. "Yes, by all means. I think it would be interesting for the 'Mammoth' Camp to meet our Mammoth Hearth."

"Good. We'd better leave early, then," Talut said, but he regarded her with puzzlement, and shook his head wondering what his clever and astute sister was thinking.

When the Lion Camp reached a large sinuous river gouging a channel between steep banks of bess soil, similar to the setting near their lodge, Talut headed out to a promontory between ravines and carefully scanned the surrounding terrain. He saw deer and aurochs near the water on the floodplain below, grazing in a green meadow dotted with small trees. Some distance farther, he noticed a large pile of jumbled bones against a high bank where the river turned sharply. Tiny figures scuttled over the accumulation of dried bones, and he saw several of them carrying away pieces.

"They are still here," he announced. "They must be building."

The travelers trooped down a slope toward the Camp, situated on a broad terrace no more than fifteen feet above the level of the river, and if Ayla had been surprised at the lodge of the Lion Camp, she was astounded by the Mammoth Camp. Rather than a single large, sod-covered, semisubterranean longhouse that Ayla had likened to a cave or even a human-sized burrow, in this Camp several individual round lodges were clustered together on the terrace. They, too, were solid and sturdy under a thick layering of sod covered with clay, and patches of grass grew around the edges, but not on the top. They reminded Ayla of nothing so much as huge, bald, marmot mounds.

As they approached, she could understand why the tops were bare. Just as they did, the Mammoth Camp used the roofs of their dwellings as viewing platforms. Two of the lodges each supported a crowd of onlookers, and though the watchers had turned their attention to the visitors, that was not the reason they were up on the rounded roofs. When the Lion Camp passed around a lodge that blocked their view, Ayla saw the object of their interest, and was astonished.

Talut had been right. They were building. Ayla had overheard Tulie's remarks about the name these people had chosen for themselves, but after seeing the lodge they were making, it seemed most appropriate. Though it might end up looking like all the others when it was completed, the way they used mammoth bones as structural supports seemed to capture a special quality of the animal. It was true that the Lion Camp had used mammoth bones in the supporting framework of their lodge, and had selected certain pieces and trimmed them to fit, but the bones used in this dwelling did more than support. They were selected and arranged so that the structure managed to convey the essence of the mammoth in a way that expressed the beliefs of the Mamutoi.

To create the design, they first brought up large numbers of the same skeletal parts of many mammoths from the bone pile below. They began with a circle, about sixteen feet across at the base, of mammoth skulls placed so that the solid surface of the foreheads faced inward. The opening was the familiar archway, constructed of two large curved tusks, anchored on each side in the socket of a mammoth skull, and joined at the top. Around the outside and halfway up was a circular wall made of, perhaps, a hundred mammoth mandibles, the V-shaped lower jaws, stacked with the pointed chins down one on top of another four deep.

The overall effect of these stacks of V's placed side by side was the most impressive concept of the construction, and the most meaningful. Together they created a zigzag pattern, similar to the pattern used to symbolize water on the maps. And beyond that, as Ayla had learned from Mamut, the zigzag symbol for water was also the most profound symbol for the Great Mother, Creator of all Life. They represented the downward-pointing triangle of Her mound, the external expression of Her womb. Multiplied many times over, the symbol represented all life; not only water, but the birth waters of the Mother which had flooded the land and filled the seas and rivers when She gave birth to all life on earth. There could be no doubt that this would be the lodge of the Mammoth Hearth.