The paint was bright on the pole.
The three bands, each about four of five inches in width, and separated also by such distances, were painted in such a way that the bottom ring, or band, was about seven and a half to eight and a half feet from the base of the pole. Thus, when the pole was set in the ground, amidst its supporting stakes, these circles would be at the visible base, or root, of the pole. Too, they would be beneath the belt of an encircling dancer.
"It is Kaiila!" shouted the men.
The neck tethers were then removed from Winyela. I gathered that her part in the ceremony was not concluded.
Suddenly the girl screamed.
I tensed.
"Do not interfere," said Cuwignaka.
The hands of men, then, were at the necklaces about her throat, the ornaments. Her moccasis and leggings were removed. The golden strings were untied, and taken, which had bound her hair. Her hair was rapidly and deftly unbraided. The silver bracelets were slipped from her wrists. The soft-tanned shirtdress, with its designs, and beading and fringe, was then thrust over her head and pulled away. She now knelt absolutely naked, save for Canka's collar, among the men. Her knees were clenched closely together. Her hair, now loose, radiant in the sun, was spread and smoothed down her back. She was very white. She almost shone in the sun. Not only was she quite fairly complexioned but, prior to her being adorned in her finery, now removed from her, she had been washed, and clipped, and groomed and scrubbed, apparently, as thoroughly and carefully as a prize kaiila.
"She is quite beautiful," said Cuwignaka.
"Yes," I said.
The girl whimpered as the two rawhide tethers were now, again, tied on her throat, belowl Canka's collar.
"What is to be done with her now?" I asked.
"Observe," said Cuwignaka.
"Oh," cried the girl. One of the men, behind her, had thrown dust upon her. "Oh!" she sobbed, as two men, rather in front of her, one on each side, tossed, each, a double handful of dust upon her. She closed her eyes, and shrank back, for Cancega, with a shallow, rounded box, was crouching before her. Teh box contained some sort of black paste, or grease. She shuddered as Cancega, taking the material on his fingertips, applied it to her cheeks. He made three dark lines, about a finger's width each, on each cheek. these were signs, I supposed, for the Kaiila. Then he rubbed the material elsewhere, in smudges, upon her body, on her arms, and back, and breasts and belly, and on the tops of her thighs, on her calves, and then, thrusting his hand between them, on the interior of her thighs.
The girl regarded him, frightened, as he, intent, did this work.
He then stood up.
She knelt at his feet, looking up at him, frightened, her knees now again pressed closely together.
Two men, with kaiila quirts, now stood behind the girl. She was not aware of their presence.
I then realized what the men, doubtless, had in mind.
I smiled.
"Oh!" cried the girl, frightened, dismayed, as Cancega suddenly, with his foot, forced her knees widely apart. She did not dare close them. She now, for the first time in the afternoon, knelt as a slave.
Then, suddenly, the two men with the kaiila quirts struck her across the back and, before she could do more than cry out, she was, too, pulled to her feet and forward, on the two tethers.
She then stood, held by the tethers, wildly, before the pole.
Cancga pointed to the pole.
She looked at him, bewildered. Then the quirts, again, struck her, and she cried out in pain.
Cancega again pointed to the pole.
Winyela then put her head down and took the ple in her small hands, and kissed it, humbly.
"Yes," said Cancega, encouraging her. "Yes."
Again Winyela kissed the pole.
"Yes," said Cancega.
Winyela then heard the rattles behind her, giving her her rhythm. These rattles were then joined by the fifing of whistles, shrill and high, formed from the wing bones of the taloned Herlit. A small drum, too, then began to sound. Its more accented beats, approached subtly but predictably, instructed the helpless, lovely dancer as to the placement and timing of the more dramatic of her demonstrations and motions.
"It is the Kaiila," chanted the men.
Winyela danced. There was dust upon her hair and on her body. On her cheeks were the three bars of grease that marked her as the property of the Kaiila. Grease, too, had been smeared liberally upon her body. No longer was she a shining beauty. She was now only a filthy slave, an ingnoble animal, something of no account, something worthless, obviously, but nonetheless permitted, in the kindness of the Kaiila, a woman of another people, to attempt to please the pole.
I smiled.
Was this not suitable? Was this not appropriate for her, a slave?
Winyela, kissing the pole, and caressing it, and moving about it, and rubbing her body against it, under the directions of Cancega, and guided sometimes by the tethers on her neck, continued to dance.
I whistled softly to myself.
"Ah," said Cuwingnaka.
"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.
"I think the pole will be pleased," I said.
"I think a rock would be pleased," said Cuwignaka.
"I agree," I said.
Winyela, by the neck tethers, was pulled against the pole. She seized it, and writhed against it, and licked at it.
"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.
"It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka.
A transofrmation seemed suddenly to come over Winyela. This was evinced in her dance.
"She is arouse," said Cuwignaka.
"Yes," I said.
She began, then, helplessly, to dance her servitude, her submission, her slavery. The dance, then, came helplessly for the depths of her. The tethers pulled her back from the pole and she reached forth for it. She struggled to reach it, writhing. Bit by bit she was permitted to near it, and then she embraced it. She climed, then, upon the pole. There her dance, on her knees, her belly and back, squirming and clutching, continued.
I looked to Canka. He was a few yards away, astride his kaiila. He rode bareback. This is common in short rides about the village, or in going out to check kaiila. The prestige of the saddle, and its dressiness, is not required in local errands or short jaunts. Similarly, in such trips its inconvenience may be dispensed with. He watched Winyela dance. His dark eyes shone. He knew he was her master.
Winyela now knelt on the pole and bent backwards, until her hair fell about the wood, and then she slipped her legs down about the pole behind her head. She reared helplessly on the pole, and writhed upon it, almost as though she might have been chained to it, and then, she turned about and lay on the pole, on her stomach, her thighs gripping it, her hands pushing her body up, and away from the pole, and then, suddenly, moving down about the trunk, bringing her head and shoulders down. Her red hair hung about the smooth, white wood. Her lips, again and again, pressed down upon it, in helpless kisses.
"She is quite good, the slave," said Cuwignaka.
"Yes," I said.
"She has not been trained to do this, has she?" asked Cuwignaka.
"Not to my knowledge," I said. It seemed to me rather unlikely that debutantes from high society would be trained to perform the supplication and passion dances of slave girls.
"It is instinctual in a woman," said Cuwignaka.
"I think so," I said. It seemed to me not unlikely, for many reasons, having to do with sexual selection, in particular, that such behaviors were, at least in broad outlines, genetically coded. Behaviors can be selected for, of course, and tendencies to behaviors, as well as such things as the color of hair and eyes. This is evident from the data of ethology. A woman's acquisition of the skills of erotic dance, incidentally, like those of a child's linguistic skills, follows an unusually sharp learning curve. This suggests that the rudiments of such dance, or the readiness for it, like the capacity, at least, for the rapid and efficient acquisition of language, is genetically coded. Sex, and human nature, may not be irrelevant to biology.