The Days of the Deer Read Online Free

village were gathering. Most were coming in large groups down the three main tracks. Some families were arriving on their own because they had been late setting off, or because
their homes made it easy for them to take a short cut. This was the case for Dulkancellin’s family: they had taken a path that allowed them to reach the Valley of the Ancestors quite
quickly.
    When they arrived, the Husihuilkes unloaded their bundles and started to greet their relatives. They saw some of them quite often, but others they only met up with on rare occasions. In the same
way that they had different skills and tasks, here the men and women met in separate groups.
    As soon as they saw Dulkancellin appear, several warriors came forward to greet him. The women gathered round Old Mother Kush. She greeted the married ones with a kiss on each cheek, and the
single women by laying her hand on their foreheads.
    The people of the Ends of the Earth loved their elders, and no one more so than Kush. All those who had grown up with her were long since dead, yet she still roamed through the forest.
    ‘I’ve been left forgotten here,’ Kush would explain whenever the matter was brought up. ‘It must be because I never make a sound.’
    Old Mother Kush had given birth to her son at a very mature age, when nobody thought it was still possible. The other Husihuilkes saw it as a miracle.
    ‘It’s a reward life has given Kush for having such a soft heart and rough hands,’ was what they whispered for a long time afterwards.
    The gathering was becoming more lively. The Husihuilkes were coming down from Whirlwind Pass and Partridge Hill, from The Corals and the villages to the north of the Cloudy River, even from
distant Wilú-Wilú.
    Most of them made the entire journey on foot. Those who lived on the far side of the river left their canoes tied up on the bank, and walked to the Valley of the Ancestors from there. Only a
few, especially those from the high villages, came riding on llamels.
    Blessed with amazingly fertile lands, the Husihuilkes were as self-suffcient as the animals of the forest. They knew the apple trees would bear fruit each year, that the animals they hunted
would have their young each season, that a single gourd contained the seeds of many more. It never occurred to any of them that there should be more than this.
    The only exception was shortly before the rainy season was due to start. Then the Husihuilkes stored more than usual so that they could survive the long days of isolation, when sea and land
turned in on themselves, and the forest withheld its riches. Both men and women redoubled their efforts. They hunted or wove, made pottery, tanned hides, or made baskets. Some of them fished and
preserved their catch in salt; others dried fruits. Yet no one ever kept more than was necessary for themselves. The rest was traded in the Valley of the Ancestors. In that way, abundance in one
village helped make up for a shortage in another. And everyone benefited from each other’s skills.
    The inhabitants of Wilú-Wilú gathered valuable stones from the mountainsides: small flints for lighting fires, larger ones to make axes and arrowheads with. But in exchange they
needed the salt and dried fish that the people of The Corals brought in reed baskets. These baskets were made in the villages on the banks of the Cloudy River, where the reeds grew in great
profusion. The same villages made clay pots: pitchers, bowls, and small jars that were greatly appreciated in the Sweet Herbs villages, where the beekeepers could use them to store the golden honey
from their honeycombs. The women from Whirlwind Pass, who were excellent weavers, brought the cloaks and woollen cloths that during the winter were so precious to the fishermen who lived on the
coast at The Corals.
    All these goods were laid out in rows that the Husihuilkes inspected at their leisure. Since every village was aware of what the others needed, and as each one took into