Starting "Strangers"

I am not getting drawn into rereading "Strangers" and will soon be engaged in other activities here but of course I will persevere on a future occasion. Let us in the first instance consider a few phrases in the opening passage. 

"...Lost Motherland." (p. 3) Implies a matriarchal society?

"...the northern horizon flickered with the campfires of the dead." (ibid.) Aurora?

"Wind lulled and ruffled my fur." (ibid.)

The wind is always with us and this narrator is not human.

"I am no saint or familiar of the Unseen..." (ibid.) What is the Unseen? Is it just believed in? Might it also be experienced? Would that experience be projected or objective?

"...the Watermother says I should..." (ibid.) Again with matriarchy?

The narrator recalls:

"...what happened long ago." (ibid.)

This might remind us of Anderson's Didonians recalling their contact with humanity.

"...I crouched down, not to be seen against the western stars and the Sky Flow." (p. 4)

Is the Sky Flow another description of the Milky Way that we have previously missed?