Young, and in prime, and old, there were many women. Within wall and without wall showed the signs of their industries. They were weavers and made from the hair of the flocks a texture that to an extent took the place of the immemorial garments of beast-skins or of woven grass. They were potters, and they skilfully constructed baskets, great and small. Tanners, their tannery told where it was situated, a little down the stream. Living now upon creatures which they had corralled and mastered, the group, women and men, were mastered by the mastered and become wanderers and pasture-seekers. When this valley showed eaten up and small for the herds, another would be sought. Therefore there was little planting about the reed huts. But what farming and gardening was practised belonged, of old times, to women, and theirs were the stone mills for the bruising and grinding of grain. The indoor gear was counted theirs, and the rule of the house. Women and men, the group reckoned descent and took name from the side of the mother.
The woman who had climbed the hill was a chief woman. There were old women, wrinkled and wise, as there were old men, who sat by the fire or in the sun and were listened to and in much obeyed. But this woman, through native energy and also because she was paired with the strongest man, had achieved authority before she was old. The valley called her Marzumat.
Marzumat had few idle bones in her body. When now she went indoors, into the largest of the huts, she came to the hearth, she helped with the pots of meat. One great pot, steaming like a fire-mountain, must be lifted from the place of mightiest heat. With a rude handle, unwieldy and heated, it presented a weight for strong arms. Marzumat lifted it, swung it clear from the flame, and set it upon the unreddened hearth. With two or three of her fellows she took meal, mixed it with milk and water, made cakes, and, kneeling, baked them upon slabs of stone sunk in coals. Those around her talked; the place was filled with voices. Marzumat could speak on occasion, but to-night she was silent, her mind following Saran and the war-men.
The formless dark came down. Women lighted the torches of resinous wood, and women brought and filled from the huger pots bowls of fire-dried clay and trough-like trenchers of wood, and a woman, standing in the doorway, blew the summoning ram’s horn. All—women, old men and children and the herdsmen—ate together, in this greatest hut where the mess had been cooked, or just without, seated on the ground, in the light of the torches. Noticeably, there lacked young men and men in their prime. Among the herdsmen sat young men and middle-aged men. But certain of these were simple of look or in some way weak or maimed, and others had copper rings about their necks. That meant that the ring-wearers did not belong by nature to the group, but had been seized from some other group. No longer were they hunters or war-men. They were tamed to keeping the flocks and herds of the captors, companions to the weaker and duller of the captors’ own group. The intractable were killed, as were the too weak or dull. Class and caste were in the world.
The fire and the torches threw a smoky and uneven light. The sky hung black and low, a roof of cloud. The stream murmured over pebbles. It was the lambing season, and from the folds rose a continuous low noise, from the ewes and their young. In the circle of fire and torchlight shadows were thrown against the walls. The shadows rose and fell; now they were dwarfs and now they were giants and now they were something in between. The shadows were chiefly those of women. Women forms passed from darkness into light, from light into darkness, from darkness again into light. Marzumat was seated now and the fire-shine struck her brow and breast and knee. Behind her, on the wall, spread and towered her shadow.
Supper eaten, occurred a lingering, for the night was cold and the fire was warm. The smaller children went away, to creep under sheep-skins and fall asleep; the babes were hushed already, except a sick one that wailed in a hut a stone-cast away. A fire burned in the hut, and a woman passed to and fro before it, the babe in her arms. Certain herdsmen went to the folds and pens, others sat still about the fire in the open air. The older children, the old men, the many women remained in the zone of warmth and light. Talk was chiefly of the war-band that had gone forth against other-people dwelling by the purple mountain. Valley people and mountain people each had eyes for an intermediate rolling and verdant, desirable pasturage. Mountain war-men had struck a valley herd that had put hoof into this region, taking the beasts and killing the herdsmen. Now there was to be retaliation, and all the strong men had gone forth to retaliate and something beyond. Not in the memory of the valley people had there been such a Punitive Expedition!
Marzumat’s children, the girl and the boy, hung around a man with pale-blue eyes and a hawk nose and beard and hair as white as the fleece of a lamb. “Bhuto, Bhuto! Sing us about how we used to do!”
Bhuto sang out of the history of the group. In part he knew and in part he made up. He fixed his eyes upon the night beyond the fire, he marked time with a large foot and a veinous hand. He had a sonorous voice, a capacious memory, and a seeing eye. To-night the strain, the wishing-to-know felt throughout the cluster, was apprehended by him more clearly than by most. So his voice deepened, his words rang, the acts he narrated seemed neither far off nor obscure. Presently the whole cluster was listening. Bhuto chanted of long-since raids and war-bands.
The boy and girl sat beside his knees. Bhuto came to a traditional pause. Part one of the ballad was done.
The girl spoke. “Bhuto, why are there no war-women? Why do not women go with war-bands and fight other-people?”