Muhaul-hinuf.

My mother.

It's an easy enough name to remember. It's almost the same first name as that of my husband's mother, Mu-phauwq. If you were going to give the names an Anglic equivalence, it would be a bit like comparing "Flower" to "Flower Petal."

Muhaul-hinuf was mentioned by name only twice in the earlier part of Alvin's journal. The first time was when Alvin came to our residence at Kazzkark. The second time she was again mentioned by name was for our wedding ceremony.

Otherwise, she was not mentioned by name, and she was rarely even mentioned as just 'Dor-hinuf's mother.'

It was almost as if she didn't exist as a person.

Unfortunately, in a way that was true.

My mother was, and to some extent still is, xenophobic.

At Kazzkark, Muhaul-hinuf always stayed in the hoon compound. She never left it, not for shopping, not to see her husband at work, and certainly never to socialize with other races. She had only reluctantly agreed to come to Kazzkark. For my benefit--but that's another story.

(To come later.)

In the secluded hoon compound at Kazzkark, she had helped to take care of the younger hoon children. The situation was not exactly like a human's day care center. It was not exactly like a kindergarten school, and it was not exactly like being a personal nanny. Instead, it was a perfectly hoonish arrangement, one that probably predates Uplift.

My mother did not like Alvin on first sight, which, of course, was when he first came to our quarters in the hoon compound. She looked at him and stated, "Who is this itinerant mendicant orphan?" (At that time, Alvin did not have his throat sac tattoo.)

She mellowed a bit after Alvin started in on his stories and poems.

The second time Alvin came to the compound, his throat sac was tattooed.

(But again, that will be another story.)

Muhaul-hinuf could not quite understand Alvin Hph-wayuo. Though she did immediately see the changes that he had brought out in me.

My mother had wanted me to date and marry Ara-hasaph, a very successful, well connected, well sought after, but stuck on himself youth of Kazzkark.

(And for the third time: More on him later.)

Now to fill in the details of our first year back on Hurmuphta.

Muhaul-hinuf tolerates living behind the cove. She mingles well with the guests in the lodge. In fact she would rather live right there at the lodge. (Maybe when we build a bigger one.)

While my father will never go sailing, my mother will never even go near the shore. Not at the cove, the bay, or even the lagoon, where the water never gets deeper than one's upper set of knees.

She's always the first person to volunteer to go to Hurmuphta City. She never willingly goes to Hurmuphta Port, and will absolutely not go into the warehouse district there.

(A fourth story reference.)

Without the ever present instances of instant death at Kazzkark, her xenophobia is waning a bit.

She tolerates Huck.

Huck more than tolerates her.

Muhaul-hinuf's attitude is one of the items on Huck's mental list of things that eventually need to be corrected.

If I may be permitted to delve into a bit of Anglic witticism:

More power to the Huckster.

---Dor-hinuf