IN THE WILDS of southeastern Africa more than half a million years ago sits the village of Kura, a matriarchal society of Homo erectus. Snap--a young, passionate woman--is destined to lead her people, and this year she must select a mate for the first time. As the Bonding ceremony approaches, Snap's future remains unknown. Will she choose someone different each year, or will she find one mate she wants to pick over and over again, like her mother, Whistle, the next leader of Kura? But when Whistle's mate doesn't return, Whistle chooses a stranger with ideas more dangerous than...

Half a million years ago, a "Homo erectus" woman fights to save her tribe from destruction. "Mother of Asili," a novel by Debra Austin, continues the story of Snap, who was exiled from her birth tribe in "Daughter of Kura" and is now the matriarch of the Asili tribe. After a series of increasingly suspicious disasters, she must discover whether the threat to her people comes from a reserved stranger, from Kura, or from within.