Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel Page B

But,” Iza added, “what do I know of spirits?”
    It was certainly not a woman’s place, not even his sibling’s, to tell Mog-ur about spirits. She made a deprecating gesture that also begged his forgiveness for her presumption. He didn’t acknowledge her—she hadn’t expected him to—but he looked at the child with greater interest as a result of her comment about a strong protecting spirit. He had been thinking much the same thing himself, and though he would never admit it, his sibling’s opinion carried weight with him, and confirmed his own thoughts.
    They broke camp quickly. Iza, loaded with her basket and bundles, reached down to hoist the girl up to her hip and fell in behind Brun and Grod. Riding on the woman’s hip, the little girl looked around her with curiosity while they traveled, watching everything Iza and the other women did. She was particularly interested whenever they stopped to gather food. Iza often gave her a bite of a fresh bud or tender young shoot, and it brought a vague recollection of another woman who had done the same thing. But now, the girl paid closer attention to the plants and began to notice identifying characteristics. Her days of hunger aroused in the young child a keen desire to learn how to find food. She pointed to a plant and was pleased when the woman stopped and dug up its root. Iza was pleased, too. The child is quick, she thought. She couldn’t have known it before or she would have eaten it.
    They stopped for a rest near midday while Brun looked over a possible cave site, and after giving the youngster the last of the broth from the water skin, Iza handed her a strip of hard dry meat to chew. The cave was not adequate for their needs. Later in the afternoon, the girl’s leg began tothrob as the effects of the willow bark wore off. She squirmed restlessly. Iza patted her and shifted her weight to a more comfortable position. The girl gave herself over completely to the woman’s care. With total trust and confidence, she wrapped skinny arms around Iza’s neck and rested her head on the woman’s broad shoulder. The medicine woman, childless for so long, felt a surge of inner warmth for the orphaned girl. She was still weak and tired, and lulled by the rhythmic motion as the woman walked, she fell asleep.
    By the time evening approached, Iza was feeling the strain of the additional burden she carried and was grateful to let the child down when Brun called a halt for the day. The girl was feverish, her cheeks flushed and hot, her eyes glazed, and while the woman looked for wood, she also looked for plants to treat the child again. Iza didn’t know what caused infection, but she did know how to treat it, and many other ailments as well.
    Though healing was magic and couched in terms of spirits, it didn’t make Iza’s medicine less effective. The ancient Clan had always lived by hunting and gathering, and generations of using wild plantlife had, by experiment or accident, built up a store of information about it. Animals were skinned and butchered and their organs observed and compared. The women dissected while preparing dinner and applied the knowledge to themselves.
    Her mother had shown Iza the various internal parts and explained their functions as part of her training, but it was only to remind her of something she already knew. Iza was born to a highly respected line of medicine women and, through a means more mysterious than training, knowledge of healing was passed on to a medicine woman’s daughters. A fledgling medicine woman of an illustrious line had a higher rank than an experienced one of mediocre antecedents—with good reason.
    Stored in her brain at birth was the knowledge acquired by her ancestors, the ancient line of medicine women of which Iza was a direct descendant. She could remember what they knew. It was not much different from recalling her own experience; and once stimulated, the process was automatic. She knew her own memories primarily