There were pictures of fierce warriors and of the hideous skymeat beasts, of goats and deer, of coiled snakes and dragonflies perched on cattails. But when Mother started pointing out the very holiest of the gods, the ones most worshipped, to Emeez's surprise these were not intricately carved at all. The very holiest of them were nothing but smooth lumps of clay.
"Why are the beautiful ones not as holy as the ones that don't look like anything?"
"Ah," said Mother, "but you have to understand, they were once the most beautiful of all. But they have been worshipped most fervently, and they have given us good babies and good hunting. So of course they've been worn smooth. But we remember what they were."
The smooth lumpy ones disturbed her. "Couldn't somebody carve new faces on them?"
"Don't be absurd. That would be blasphemy." Mother looked annoyed. "Honestly, Emeez, I don't understand how your mind works. Nobody carves the gods. They would have no power if men and women just made them up out of clay."
"Well who does make them, then?"
"We bring them home," said Mother. "We find them and bring them home."
"But who makes them?"
"They make themselves," said Mother. "They rise up from the clay of the riverbank by themselves."
"Can I watch sometime?"
"No," said Mother.
"I want to watch a god coming forth."
Mother sighed. "I suppose you're old enough. If you promise you won't go telling the younger children."
"I promise."
"There is a certain time of year. In the dry season. The skymeat come down and shape the mud by the riverbank."
"Skymeat?" Emeez was appalled. "You can't be serious. That's disgusting."
"Of course it would be disgusting," said Mother, "if you thought the skymeat actually understood what they were doing. But they don't. The god comes awake inside them and they just start mindlessly shaping the clay in fantastic intricate patterns. Then, when they're done, they just go away. Leave them behind. For us."
The skymeat. Those nasty flying things that sometimes trapped and killed hunters. Their young were brought home and roasted and fed to pregnant women. They were dangerous, mindless beasts, treacherous and sneaky, and they made the gods?
"I'm not feeling well, Mother," said Emeez.
"Well, then, sit down here for a few minutes and rest," said Mother. "I'm supposed to meet the priestess three rooms up-that way-and I can't be late. But you can come after me and find me, right? You won't wander off the main path and get lost, will you?"
"I don't think I suddenly turned stupid, Mother."
"But you did suddenly turn rude. I don't like that in you, Emeez."
Well, nobody likes much of anything in me, she thought. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with them, I think I'm excellent company. I'm much smarter than any of my other friends, and so everything I say to myself is scintillating and exciting and has never been said before. Unlike those who say over and over, endlessly, the same bits of "wisdom" they picked up from their mothers. And I'm certainly better company than the boys, always throwing things and breaking things and cutting things. Much better to dig and to weave, the way women do, to gather things rather than kill them, to combine leaves and fruit and meat and roots together in a way that tastes good. I will be a fine woman, hairy or not, and whatever man ends up getting stuck with me will make a big show about how disappointed he is, but in secret he'll be glad, and I'll make him a whole bunch of smart hairy babies and they'll be just as ugly and just as smart and clever as I am until someday they wake up and realize that the hairy ones make the best wives and mothers and the hairless ones are just slimy and cold all the time, like skinned melons.
Angry now, Emeez got up and started looking closer at the gods. She couldn't help it-there was nothing interesting about the overworshipped gods. It was the pristine, intricate ones that fascinated her. Maybe that was her whole problem-she was attracted to gods with poor reputations, and that's why she was cursed with ugliness, because the really effective gods knew that she wouldn't like them. That was terrible, though, to punish her from birth for a sin she wouldn't even commit until she was six, only two years before she became a woman.
Well, as long as I've already been punished for it, I'm going to go right ahead and deserve the punishment. I'm