The Clan Father stood and gripped Gordon’s wrist and gestured toward a place next to his in the ring. They sat. Mahu was on Gordon’s left and Ghaf seated himself on Gordon’s right. Ghaf said to Gordon, “How many suns you know Pela?”
“Six,” Gordon answered.
“Not long,” said Mahu shaking his head.
“Is that time enough,” asked Ghaf, “to know another?”
“Not time enough,” answered Gordon. “That will take a lifetime.”
The hunter nodded approvingly at the answer. Mahu leaned more closely to Gordon and said, “Pela good woman.” Then Mahu shrugged and shook his head. “Pela no afutebbe.”
Gordon mentally searched though the vocabulary he had pieced together, his head still clouded from Tonton’s little hypno preparation. The “afu” sound was a fertility prefix. “Tebbe” was apartness, unjoining. Together they meant virginity. Pela was not a virgin.
“Then Pela is truthful,” he said.
Mahu touched his thumb to his tongue, and nodded to his left where sat a woman in furs. She had dark hair, a pleasant enough face, and a big smile. “This Shantonna.”
Gordon nodded at her. “Shantonna, I greet you.”
Shantonna turned to her left and pushed a young girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen around in front of Mahu facing Gordon. “Anista,” introduced Mahu. The child wore white furs and had an angelic face with a tiny nose and large brown eyes framed by black hair woven with yellow dried flowers. “Anista afutebbe!” declared the Clan Father.
Gordon looked at the girl, unsure what he was supposed to do next. Anista grinned shyly, turned, and hid her face behind her mother. Shantonna pulled the girl out from behind and grinned widely as she held her in Gordon’s view, turning her around like a prized pumpkin. “Anista,” said Gordon, “how many summers have you?”
The girl looked up at him with huge brown eyes and held up ten fingers, then three.
Gordon rubbed his chin and studied her. “My summers,” he said, then held out all ten of his fingers once, twice, then three times followed by all but two of his fingers. The girl’s eyebrows climbed for the sky.
“Your face is a boy’s,” she protested.
“I am old and can never have a beard unless I cut off your hair and use that,” he said. “I am honored to meet you and I wish you a long healthy life, a strong young handsome husband, and many children and grandchildren. I am thinking for Pela now and have no thoughts to spare for others.” He looked at the girl’s mother. “Save your daughter, Shantonna, for one more worthy.”
Relief showed on the girl’s face. Shantonna’s, as well.
Mahu scratched at his beard and faced Gordon. “Thirty and eight summers?”
“Yes.”
“No beard?”
“No.”
The clan leader studied Gordon, concentrating on his face. The inspection complete, Mahu held a hand against his own chest and said quietly, “Thirty and nine.” He then made a yoni sign with his right hand and a phallic sign with his left. Upon a rather graphic joining, the clan leader looked up at Gordon, a question on his face.
Gordon grinned. “Yes, I do.”
Mahu looked around, gesturing with his hands to include the known universe. “Who?”
The most recent who was the artist in Port Elizabeth, but that was two wars and several years ago. “No one,” Gordon admitted. “For long time. No one.”
Mahu’s eyebrows descended in an instant of disappointment, then he smiled sympathetically, nodded, and patted Gordon’s back. “Mahu, just so. Many summers. Just so.” He wiggled a finger at Gordon, ending the gesture with a droopy finger.
Gordon frowned. “That doesn’t mean I can’t.”
Mahu humored Gordon with a nod and another pat on the back.
A man seated behind Mahu leaned forward and said to Gordon, “Shagiv. I make tent.” Gordon nodded at him. “Once I saw Pela speak angrily to her first husband, Iveleh,” he confessed.
Another man behind Gordon said, “Pahit, thread maker. Twice I hear Pela curse Ekav.” He pointed up. “The first time she cursed the god was when Iveleh’s ashes were brought back from Yellow Claw country. The second time was when Iveleh’s brother, Jidah, died of the blacksore.”
A man behind Ghaf said, “Tayem, I run hunting dogs. Know that Pela has almost thirty summers. She can bear you no children.”
Gordon waited to see if there were any more remarks to be made against Pela. When there were none, he said, “Thank you for your guidance. From you I see that Pela is experienced, accomplished, loves and feels loss deeply, and is fearless in addressing the gods when they wrong her. From you all I see I have chosen well.”
Mahu grinned widely, nodded at Ghaf’s wife, and the Temptation ceremony continued with a feast of goat, tea, and something resembling hardtack which when softened in the tea was quite sweet. Mahu said, “Keila,” then he pointed across the circle. Gordon looked where the Clan Father indicated. There was a place across from Gordon that was empty. One of Mahu’s wives, a plump sandy-haired woman in her early thirties wearing the leather long shirt, placed a beaded leather cushion in the empty place, glanced at Gordon, covered her face in embarrassment, faced her left palm at Mahu, and went to the fire pit to join in the cooking. “Keila,” repeated Mahu. “My first wife. Keila first daughter of Kag Ati, Clan Father Cleft Mountain. Keila’s mother dead. Kag Ati took three new wives to replace her.” He looked around the circle at the company. “Kag Ati not here.” Mahu pointed out his two other wives, both dark-complexioned younger women with black hair and dark eyes. “Suna and Min. Twin daughters of Nol Pindaak, naticha of Yellow Claw Clan.” He gestured toward a man in a black leather hooded long shirt who wore a necklace of blue beads. Nol Pindaak nodded back at Mahu’s gesture and pushed back his hood, revealing a weathered dark face with large dark eyes. He sported a long black beard salted with gray. Nol Pindaak gestured to a quite slender woman in furs sitting to his left.
“That is Funa Son, Nol’s only wife, mother of Suna and Min. Mahu continued introducing the notable personages attending the ceremony. When he was concluded, he asked if he could look at Gordon’s leather knapsack. Gordon handed it over and Mahu nodded his thanks as he held the pack in his lap and studied the finish on the leather and especially the stitching. “I have never seen such work. Who made this?”
“L.L. Bean.”
“Where is this—”
“Mahu!” called a deep gravelly voice. The Black Mountain Clan Father looked up, grinned and waved. Gordon saw a man in heavy dark furs on the other side of the fire pit near the eastern entrance wave back. “Kag Ati,” said Mahu.
The Clan Father of the Cleft Mountain Clan was taller than usual, heavily muscled, and with a face burned dark by sun, wind, and snow glare. He had an ugly scar from the outside corner of his left eye straight down to his chin line, the result of a knife fight in which—according to Mahu—he slew the previous Clan Father. Kag Ati wore his dark brown furs about his shoulders over whitish leathers and was the only one in Ghaf’s tent who carried a weapon: one of the obsidian-toothed clubs. Kag Ati looked at Gordon, switched his weapon from his right to his left hand, kissed his own right palm, touched the palm to his forehead, and held the hand out in Gordon’s direction. Gordon nodded in return.
Wooden drums began beating, the instrumentation provided by two men near the door. Just as suddenly as it began, the drumming stopped. Pela’s ex-sister-in-law Bonsha came in the eastern entrance and stood to the left of the opening. Then Pela entered, being led by a tall man in his forties with thick black hair streaked with gray. Deep blue eyes were capped with arched black eyebrows.
“Lekiv is lawminder, my good right arm,” said Mahu. “He takes the place of his great friend Cualu, Pela’s father.”