The Great Taboo

CHAPTER XIII.

AS BE­TWEEN GODS.

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la came up in his grand­est panoply. The great um­brel­la, with the hang­ing cords, rose high over his head; the King of Fire and the King of Wa­ter, in their robes of state, marched slow­ly by his side; a whole group of slaves and tem­ple at­ten­dants, clap­ping hands in uni­son, fol­lowed obe­di­ent at his sa­cred heels. But as soon as he reached the open space in front of the huts and be­gan to speak, Fe­lix could eas­ily see, in spite of his own ag­ita­tion and the ex­cite­ment of the mo­ment, that the im­pla­ca­ble god him­self was pro­found­ly fright­ened. Last night's storm had, in­deed, been ter­ri­ble; but Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la men­tal­ly cou­pled it with Fe­lix's at­ti­tude to­ward him­self at their last in­ter­view, and re­al­ly be­lieved in his own heart he had met, af­ter all, with a stronger god, more pow­er­ful than him­self, who could make the clouds burst forth in fire and the earth trem­ble. The sav­age swag­gered a good deal, to be sure, as is of­ten the fash­ion with sav­ages when fright­ened; but Fe­lix could see be­tween the lines, that he swag­gered on­ly on the fa­mil­iar prin­ci­ple of whistling to keep your courage up, and that in his heart of hearts he was most un­speak­ably ter­ri­fied.

“You did not do well, O King of the Rain, last night,” he said, af­ter an in­ter­change of ci­vil­ities, as be­comes great gods. “You have put out even the sa­cred flame on the holy hearth of the King of Fire. You have a bad heart. Why do you use us so?”

“Why do you let your peo­ple of­fer hu­man sac­ri­fices?” Fe­lix an­swered, bold­ly, tak­ing ad­van­tage of his po­si­tion. “They are hate­ful in our sight, these can­ni­bal ways. While we re­main on the is­land, no hu­man life shall be un­just­ly tak­en. Do you un­der­stand me?”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la drew back, and gazed around him sus­pi­cious­ly. In all his ex­pe­ri­ence no one had ev­er dared to ad­dress him like that. As­sured­ly, the stranger from the sun must be a very great god--how great, he hard­ly dared to him­self to re­al­ize. He shrugged his shoul­ders. “When we mighty deities of the first or­der speak to­geth­er, face to face,” he said, with an un­easy air, “it is not well that the mere com­mon herd of men should over­hear our pro­found de­lib­er­ations. Let us go in­side your hut. Let us con­fer in pri­vate.”

They en­tered the hut alone, Muriel still cling­ing to Fe­lix's arm, in speech­less ter­ror. Then Fe­lix at once be­gan to ex­plain the sit­ua­tion. As he spoke, a bale­ful light gleamed in Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's eye. The great god re­moved his mul­ber­ry-​pa­per mask. He was ev­ident­ly de­light­ed at the turn things had tak­en. If on­ly he dared--but there; he dared not. “Fire and Wa­ter would nev­er al­low it,” he mur­mured soft­ly to him­self. “They know the taboos as well as I do.” It was clear to Fe­lix that the sav­age would glad­ly have sac­ri­ficed him if he dared, and that he made no bones about let­ting him know it; but the cus­tom of the is­landers bound him as tight­ly as it bound them­selves, and he was afraid to transgress it.

“Now lis­ten,” Fe­lix said, at last, af­ter a long palaver, look­ing in the sav­age's face with a res­olute air: “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of all your peo­ple. I went out alone just now to res­cue that child, and, as you see, I suc­ceed­ed in res­cu­ing it. Your peo­ple have wound­ed me--look at the blood on my arms and chest--but I don't mind for wounds. I mean you to do as I say, and to make your peo­ple do so, too. Un­der­stand, the na­tion to which I be­long is very pow­er­ful. You have heard of the sail­ing gods who go over the sea in ca­noes of fire, as swift as the wind, and whose weapons are hol­low tubes, that belch forth great bolts of light­ning and thun­der? Very well, I am one of them. If ev­er you harm a hair of our heads, those sail­ing gods will be­fore long send one of their mighty fire-​ca­noes, and bring to bear up­on your is­land their thun­der and light­ning, and de­stroy your huts, and pun­ish you for the wrong you have ven­tured to do us. So now you know. Re­mem­ber that you act ex­act­ly as I tell you.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la was ev­ident­ly over­awed by the white man's res­olute voice and man­ner. He had heard be­fore of the sail­ing gods (as the Poly­ne­sians of the old school still call the Eu­ro­peans); and though but one or two stray in­di­vid­uals among them had ev­er reached his re­mote is­land (most­ly as cast­aways), he was quite well enough ac­quaint­ed with their might and pow­er to be deeply im­pressed by Fe­lix's ex­hor­ta­tion. So he tried to tem­po­rize. “Very well,” he made an­swer, with his jaun­ti­est air, as­sum­ing a tone of friend­ly good-​fel­low­ship to­ward his broth­er-​god. “I will bear it in mind. I will try to hu­mor you. While your time lasts, no man shall hurt you. But if I promise you that, you must do a good turn for me in­stead. You must come out be­fore the peo­ple and give me a new fire from the sun, that you car­ry in a shin­ing box about with you. The King of Fire has al­lowed his sa­cred flame to go out in def­er­ence to your flood; for last night, you know, you came down heav­ily. Nev­er in my life have I known you come down heav­ier. The King of Fire ac­knowl­edges him­self beat­en. So give us light now be­fore the peo­ple, that they may know we are gods, and may fear to dis­obey us.”

“On­ly on one con­di­tion,” Fe­lix an­swered, stern­ly; for he felt he had Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la more or less in his pow­er now, and that he could drive a bar­gain with him. Why, he wasn't sure; but he saw Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la at­tached a pro­found im­por­tance to hav­ing the sa­cred fire re­light­ed, as he thought, di­rect from heav­en.

“What con­di­tion is that?” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la asked, glanc­ing about him sus­pi­cious­ly.

“Why, that you give up in fu­ture hu­man sac­ri­fices.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la gave a start. Then he re­flect­ed for a mo­ment. Ev­ident­ly, the con­di­tion seemed to him a very hard one. “Do you want all the vic­tims for your­self and her, then?” he asked, with a ca­su­al nod aside to­ward Muriel.

Fe­lix drew back, with hor­ror de­pict­ed on ev­ery line of his face. “Heav­en for­bid!” he an­swered, fer­vent­ly. “We want no blood­shed, no hu­man vic­tims. We ask you to give up these hor­rid prac­tices, be­cause they shock and re­volt us. If you would have your fire light­ed, you must promise us to put down can­ni­bal­ism al­to­geth­er hence­forth in your is­land.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la hes­itat­ed. Af­ter all, it was on­ly for a very short time that these strangers could thus beard him. Their day would come soon. They were but Ko­rongs. Mean­while, it was best, no doubt, to ef­fect a com­pro­mise. “Agreed,” he an­swered, slow­ly. “I will put down hu­man sac­ri­fices--so long as you live among us. And I will tell the peo­ple your taboo is not bro­ken. All shall be done as you will in this mat­ter. Now, come out be­fore the crowd and light the fire from Heav­en.”

“Re­mem­ber,” Fe­lix re­peat­ed, “if you break your word, my peo­ple will come down up­on you, soon­er or lat­er, in their mighty fire-​ca­noes, and will take vengeance for your crime, and de­stroy you ut­ter­ly.”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la smiled a cun­ning smile. “I know all that,” he an­swered. “I am a god my­self, not a fool, don't you see? You are a very great god, too; but I am the greater. No more of words be­tween us two. It is as be­tween gods. The fire! the fire!”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la re­placed his mask. They pro­ceed­ed from the hut to the open space with­in the taboo-​line. The peo­ple still lay all flat on their faces. “Fire and Wa­ter,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said, in a com­mand­ing tone, “come for­ward and screen me!”

The King of Fire and the King of Wa­ter un­rolled a large square of na­tive cloth, which they held up as a screen on two poles in front of their su­pe­ri­or de­ity. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la sat down on the ground, hug­ging his knees, in the com­mon squat­ting sav­age fash­ion, be­hind the veil thus read­ily formed for him. “Taboo is re­moved,” he said, in loud, clear tones. “My peo­ple may rise. The light will not burn them. They may look to­ward the place where Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la's face is hid­den from them.”

The peo­ple all rose with one ac­cord, and gazed straight be­fore them.

“The King of Fire will bring dry sticks,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la said, in his ac­cus­tomed re­gal man­ner.

The King of Fire, stick­ing one pole of the screen in­to the ground se­cure­ly, brought for­ward a bun­dle of sun-​dried sticks and leaves from a bas­ket be­side him.

“The King of the Rain, who has put out all our hearths with his flood last night, will re­light them again with new fire, fresh flame from the sun, rays of our disk, di­vine, mys­tic, won­der­ful,” Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la pro­claimed, in his dron­ing mono­tone.

Fe­lix ad­vanced as he spoke to the pile, and struck a match be­fore the eyes of all the is­landers. As they saw it light, and then set fire to the wood, a loud cry went up once more, “Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la is great! His words are true! He has brought fire from the sun! His ways are won­der­ful!”

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, from his point of van­tage be­hind the cur­tain, strove to im­prove the oc­ca­sion with a the­olog­ical les­son. “That is the way we have learned from our di­vine an­ces­tors,” he said, slow­ly; “the rule of the gods in our is­land of Boupari. Each god, as he grows old, rein­car­nates him­self vis­ibly. Be­fore he can grow fee­ble and die he im­mo­lates him­self will­ing­ly on his own al­tar; and a younger and a stronger than he re­ceives his spir­it. Thus the gods are al­ways young and al­ways with you. Be­hold my­self, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la! Am I not from old times? Am I not very an­cient? Have I not passed through many bod­ies? Do I not spring ev­er fresh from my own ash­es? Do I not eat per­pet­ual­ly the flesh of new vic­tims? Even so with fire. The flames of our is­land were be­com­ing im­pure. The King of Fire saw his cin­ders flick­er­ing. So I gave my word. The King of the Rain de­scend­ed in floods up­on them. He put them all out. And now he rekin­dles them. They burn up brighter and fresh­er than ev­er. They burn to cook my meat, the limbs of my vic­tims. Take heed that you do the King of the Rain no harm as long as he re­mains with­in his sa­cred cir­cle. He is a very great god. He is fierce; he is cru­el. His taboo is not bro­ken. Be­ware! Be­ware! Dis­obey at your per­il. I, Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la, have spo­ken.”

As he spoke, it seemed to Fe­lix that these strange mys­tic words about each god spring­ing fresh from his own ash­es must con­tain the so­lu­tion of that dread prob­lem they were try­ing in vain to read. That, per­haps, was the se­cret of Ko­rong. If on­ly they could ev­er man­age to un­der­stand it!

Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la beat his tom-​tom twice. In a sec­ond all the peo­ple fell flat on their faces again. Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la rose; the kings of Fire and Wa­ter held the um­brel­la over him. The at­ten­dants on ei­ther side clapped hands in time to the sa­cred tom-​tom. With proud, slow tread, the god re­traced his steps to his own palace-​tem­ple; and Muriel and Fe­lix were left alone at last in their dusty en­clo­sure.

“Tu-​Ki­la-​Ki­la hates me,” Fe­lix said, lat­er in the day, to his at­ten­tive Shad­ow.

“Of course,” the young man an­swered, with a tone of nat­ural as­sent. “To be sure he hates you. How could he do oth­er­wise? You are Ko­rong. You may any day be his en­emy.”

“But he's afraid of me, too,” Fe­lix went on. “He would have liked to let the peo­ple tear me in pieces. Yet he dared not risk it. He seems to dread of­fend­ing me.”

“Of course,” the Shad­ow replied, as read­ily as be­fore. “He is very much afraid of you. You are Ko­rong. You may any day sup­plant him. He would like to get rid of you, if he could see his way. But till your time comes he dare not touch you.”

“When will my time come?” Fe­lix asked, with that dim ap­pre­hen­sion of some hor­ri­ble end com­ing over him yet again in all its vague weird­ness.

The Shad­ow shook his head. “That,” he an­swered, “it is not law­ful for me so much as to men­tion. I tell you too far. You will know soon enough. Wait, and be pa­tient.”