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perform upon us.
It was through her leadership that we were still here today and we could lead a normal life. It was because of her that we were still alive as a race and everyone paid their extreme gratitude to her in as many ways as possible, whether by prayer, sacrifice or the good deed that they performed in honour.
The prospect of a new Shaman was something that people had been anticipating for many years. It was generally said by the priests of the Great Temple, that the new Shaman would appear some ten years after the death of the previous one. So, when I turned ten, hundreds of women from eight to eighty years old, stood in the reincarnation site, waiting to see if they were the chosen one that would lead our tribe.
So far, nothing had happened. The reincarnation site had never lit up.
The weeds and tall grasses have grown around the tall stones. The stones themselves had started to crumble. It had been so long.
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Never had we had to wait over ten years for another Shaman. Many had grown sceptical - even I had. The priests were delving into old manuscripts trying to find out a reason for this occurrence. Nobody had found anything. It was entirely hopeless.
When I was fifteen, they organised a compulsory test for all women over eighteen years old. This would involve hundreds of women entering the overgrown reincarnation site and standing there for a few seconds under the new moon. It was said that should the new Shaman be present in the reincarnation site, it would light up in some spectacular array. Alas, all we had seen was the frustration of the priests and the hundreds of burning torches as people waited to see if this would be the night.
However, what worried people the most was that a small group of pro-Matak preachers had come to our attention and were determined to regain their settlement and finish us off once and for all. Their Shaman had also died after the battle but we had received no reports whether
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