Sacred Ground by Barbara Wood Read Free Book Online

her inner rancor and bitterness and her deep terror that one day Marimi might compete with her for god-power, Opaka told herself now that the secret she plotted against the girl was for the good of the tribe.
    * * *
    A group of young women came by, Marimi’s unmarried friends, to tease her about not getting cold tonight when the winter chill invaded their shelters. They only had their furs and hides to keep them warm, whereas lucky Marimi had the heat of a man. “If we hear your cries,” said one girl who was soon to be married to a hunter from the Falcon Clan, “shall we come and rescue you?”
    “But what if the cries are his ?” teased another. “Shall we come and take your husband away?”
    Marimi blushed and laughed and chided her friends for being silly virgins, but she loved the attention and was indeed looking forward to her husband’s lusty embrace that coming night.
    As she was about to offer her friends a basket of berries, which she had picked that afternoon, a woman suddenly broke into the circle, pushing aside the dancers, screaming as she carried an unconscious child. She flung herself before Opaka, beseeching the medicine woman to save her son.
    The encampment fell silent, leaving only the sounds of flames crackling in campfires and babies wailing in distant huts.
    Marimi recognized the boy. He was Payat, of the Mountain Lion Clan, his second family were the People From The Red Canyon, his first family were “lives by the salt flat.” A dreadful hush descended upon the encampment as Opaka struggled to her feet and went to bend over the boy, who was moaning in pain. She touched various points of his body, laid a hand on his forehead, closed her eyes, and held her hands out, palms downward, over his writhing form. And all the while she murmured a mystical chant which no one understood.
    Finally, she opened her eyes, straightened as best she could, and declared that the boy had broken a taboo and now there was an evil spirit in him.
    A collective gasp rose from the crowd. People shifted nervously and some even backed away. Women who were menstruating or breastfeeding rushed inside the protection of their shelters, while men handled their spears nervously. A person possessed by an evil spirit was a frightening thing, for the spirit could fly from the possessed one at any moment and enter the body of anyone nearby.
    Opaka declared the boy Untouchable, that he was as good as dead and beyond the help of the gods, and then she conferred with the chief and subchiefs over what to do with him— he certainly could not be allowed to remain among the people. In the meantime, Marimi edged closer to the scene.
    Payat’s mother was bent over him, sobbing and begging for the evil spirit to leave his body. Two hunters were ordered to lift her away from the boy, for Opaka had declared it taboo to touch him. While everyone’s attention was on the hysterical woman, Marimi moved yet closer, curious to know what had happened. She knew she should keep away, because she was pregnant and should not be in the presence of a taboo person, but she had never seen a possessed person before. But as she drew near, she saw only a little boy who was grimacing in pain and of shocking pallor. What terrible crime could so young a child have committed, she wondered, to deserve the infliction of an evil spirit?
    Then Marimi saw something that the others seemed not to— in the boy’s hands, crushed yellow blossoms. And suddenly she knew: the child had eaten buttercup leaves. That was how the evil spirit had entered Payat! Everyone knew that the buttercup plant housed an evil spirit and that to ingest it caused sickness and death. If the leaves were still in his stomach, Marimi wondered with sudden insight, mightn’t it be possible to expel the spirit?
    Without thinking, she rushed forward and before anyone could react, lifted the boy, turned him over, and stuck a finger down his throat. He started at once to vomit.
    The onlookers cried