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13beans
SOLVED!
Fiction
Read it no earlier than 980 and no later than 1989. Paperback, not hardcover
Title may have contained: Eve, Daughter (or Daughters)
The story jumped through over time, from stone age to modern day. It traced the matriarchal line, mothers to daughters, skipping multiple generations at time - rather like Sarum by Edward Rutherford does. As the novel stops in time here and there, it tells a story about a mother/daughter pair - some who face extraordinary circumstances. The last stop was modern day (which would have been 20-30 years ago).
The most I can remember is that mothers brought their daughters to a cave, perhaps located in Basque Country to see a painting(?) thereby transferring the secret to the next generation. Can't recall what made the cave special, or the secret so important, but it could only be transferred from mother to daughter. Not sure if it was a coming of age thing or something that took place as the mother neared death. Maybe they added their handprints/name to the wall, and thus each succeeding generation could see their family history? This was a longstanding tradition, the implication that it began with Eve/First Woman. Not a Christian story.
Many thanks!
Fiction
Read it no earlier than 980 and no later than 1989. Paperback, not hardcover
Title may have contained: Eve, Daughter (or Daughters)
The story jumped through over time, from stone age to modern day. It traced the matriarchal line, mothers to daughters, skipping multiple generations at time - rather like Sarum by Edward Rutherford does. As the novel stops in time here and there, it tells a story about a mother/daughter pair - some who face extraordinary circumstances. The last stop was modern day (which would have been 20-30 years ago).
The most I can remember is that mothers brought their daughters to a cave, perhaps located in Basque Country to see a painting(?) thereby transferring the secret to the next generation. Can't recall what made the cave special, or the secret so important, but it could only be transferred from mother to daughter. Not sure if it was a coming of age thing or something that took place as the mother neared death. Maybe they added their handprints/name to the wall, and thus each succeeding generation could see their family history? This was a longstanding tradition, the implication that it began with Eve/First Woman. Not a Christian story.
Many thanks!
2kmaziarz
Perhaps The Cave Dreamers by Jeanne Williams?
From the Kirkus review:
Williams covers giant distances over recorded time in decorous little hops here, linking each period tale about stout-hearted women to an ancient Basque town and the secret Cave (which holds a mother-daughter legacy rooted in the old Goddess religion). Long before the Romans invade, the woman Ezda paints totemic scenes on dark cave walls, instructing her daughter in the words to be passed down through generations: "In our cave it is always summer." Ezda's descendant Kathi will fall in love with a Roman captive--but sacrifices him in order to end ritual murder forever. Next: jump to the 11th century--as Lael of Cordova is forced to flee to her grandmother after her family and fiancÉ are killed; she sees the legendary cave, displays the traditional female virtues (healing, animal-loving), and rides to her death on her great white horse to escape marriage. Then, in the 16th century, Marya is about to perish in the Inquisition when she escapes on a ship west: she searches for lost fiancÉ Martin in Mexico, joins a group of Spanish colonists, observes the exploitation of the Indians, narrowly escapes death, but returns home after learning of Martin's death--with Basque pirate Ruy and Martin's half-indian daughter. The longest yarn is about Dominika, who leaves her Basque town circa 1900 to become a housekeeper for rancher Brant and his ill wife in Idaho. Pregnant by Brant, she moves West and will have three husbands before, at age 92, meeting artist/ecologist Eden Lowrie, who falls in love with Dominika's cold grandson Trace. (Two other grandsons are plotting to grab Grandmother's land--for a recreation complex or missile base.) And Eden inherits Dominika's Basque legacy, reaching the Cave just in time to be rescued (by matriarchal ghosts?) from murder. In spite of occasional grue, it's all sedate and ladylike--and only for those favoring the fragmentary-pageant approach to dynastic pop-fiction. (Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1983)
From the Kirkus review:
Williams covers giant distances over recorded time in decorous little hops here, linking each period tale about stout-hearted women to an ancient Basque town and the secret Cave (which holds a mother-daughter legacy rooted in the old Goddess religion). Long before the Romans invade, the woman Ezda paints totemic scenes on dark cave walls, instructing her daughter in the words to be passed down through generations: "In our cave it is always summer." Ezda's descendant Kathi will fall in love with a Roman captive--but sacrifices him in order to end ritual murder forever. Next: jump to the 11th century--as Lael of Cordova is forced to flee to her grandmother after her family and fiancÉ are killed; she sees the legendary cave, displays the traditional female virtues (healing, animal-loving), and rides to her death on her great white horse to escape marriage. Then, in the 16th century, Marya is about to perish in the Inquisition when she escapes on a ship west: she searches for lost fiancÉ Martin in Mexico, joins a group of Spanish colonists, observes the exploitation of the Indians, narrowly escapes death, but returns home after learning of Martin's death--with Basque pirate Ruy and Martin's half-indian daughter. The longest yarn is about Dominika, who leaves her Basque town circa 1900 to become a housekeeper for rancher Brant and his ill wife in Idaho. Pregnant by Brant, she moves West and will have three husbands before, at age 92, meeting artist/ecologist Eden Lowrie, who falls in love with Dominika's cold grandson Trace. (Two other grandsons are plotting to grab Grandmother's land--for a recreation complex or missile base.) And Eden inherits Dominika's Basque legacy, reaching the Cave just in time to be rescued (by matriarchal ghosts?) from murder. In spite of occasional grue, it's all sedate and ladylike--and only for those favoring the fragmentary-pageant approach to dynastic pop-fiction. (Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1983)
3Petroglyph
I concur: this is The Cave Dreamers.
The description also reminded me of Joan Dahr Lambert's Circles of Stone, which also features a trans-generational sequence of mothers and daughters throughout prehistory. The story is told through successive wise women of the tribe, who lead their people to new lands and around who the mother goddess religion is organised. The latter portions of the novel are set in the Pyrennees (that's the Basque connection -- pre-Indo-European peoples, mother goddess worship, ...). The story stops long before the present day, though (IIRC around the time the Indo-Europeans arrive), and it was published too late, in 1996. It was all very new-agey, "celebrating the mystical female principle"-like.
I'm just throwing this out there -- you might enjoy this one, too.
The description also reminded me of Joan Dahr Lambert's Circles of Stone, which also features a trans-generational sequence of mothers and daughters throughout prehistory. The story is told through successive wise women of the tribe, who lead their people to new lands and around who the mother goddess religion is organised. The latter portions of the novel are set in the Pyrennees (that's the Basque connection -- pre-Indo-European peoples, mother goddess worship, ...). The story stops long before the present day, though (IIRC around the time the Indo-Europeans arrive), and it was published too late, in 1996. It was all very new-agey, "celebrating the mystical female principle"-like.
I'm just throwing this out there -- you might enjoy this one, too.
