Song of the Selkies by Cathie Dunsford

Author:Cathie Dunsford
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Lesbian, Folklore
Publisher: Spinifex Press
Published: 2006-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

[23]

‘Set into the floor, near the hearth, are stone boxes, the joints of which are luted, or cemented with clay, to make them watertight. It is likely they were used to soak limpets so they are soft enough to be used for fish bait.’ DK eyes the cute young woman who guides them through the ancient seaside village, wondering if she is a dyke. She has a labrys earring made from silver and wears a waist coat over a silk shirt. Her hair is cut short and spiky.

‘Calling DK. Back to earth, DK,’ Uretsete breathes into her ear. ‘Check out these limpet boxes. They must have used them in rotation since they have several smaller ones rather than one large box. Maybe we could try the same and see what we can catch from the rocks off Skara Brae?’ DK is too busy checking out whether the boots are Doc Martens or some local variety to reply.

‘Note the central hearth in each house. This was essential for warmth and fuel was probably a mixture of dung, heather, bracken, marine mammal bone which is rich in oil, and dried seaweed.’ The guide points towards the hearth, adding that what wood may have been available was too precious to burn and was most likely kept for tool making.

Cowrie is busy looking closely at the carvings on the walls of the houses and passages linking them. The guide notes that the designs are abstract and have no meaning known to archeologists but did for the artists at the time. Cowrie peers at the two stones nearest her. They both have etchings similar to those on the ki’i pohaku or rock drawings found on cave walls in Hawai’i and Aotearoa. There the drawings depict animals and birdpeople and more recognisable figures, but here the lines are like the journeys described by scratches on the pahoehoe or lava rock with diagonals and crosses marking sites of interest. Aboriginals in Australia marked such sites with spiral and circular designs painted onto bark or etched in the sand or rock. A pity so many archeologists work only from their monocultural knowledge, thinks Cowrie, taking out a sketch pad to jot down the neolithic designs etched into the walls of the Skara Brae houses.

‘How come the village was preserved so well, and how did knowledge of it become known?’ asks a tartan-clad Scotsman, peering over his half-spectacles, his rich red eyebrows raised in expectation.

‘It was the winter of 1850,’ explains the guide. ‘A wild storm stripped the grass from the top of the dunes revealing an immense midden or refuse heap and the first glimpses of these ancient dwellings.’

‘How old are they?’ his wife asks, leaning on his shoulder.

‘Skara Brae was inhabited before the Egyptian pyramids were built and the community here flourished many centuries before work began on constructing Stonehenge. The original village, on which this now stands, was built about 5000 BCE and this one was inhabited about 3100 BCE to 2500 BCE.’

‘Awesome,’ says DK, referring

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