The Great Taboo

AFTER THE STORM.

Next morning the day broke bright and calm, as if the tempest had been but an evil dream of the night, now past forever.  The birds sang loud; the lizards came forth from their holes in the wall, and basked, green and gold, in the warm, dry sunshine.  But though the sky overhead was blue and the air clear, as usually happen after these alarming tropical cyclones and rainstorms, the memorials of the great wind that had raged all night long among the forests of the island were neither few nor far between.  Everywhere the ground was strewn with leaves and branches and huge stems of cocoa-palms.  All nature was draggled.  Many of the trees were stripped clean of their foliage, as completely as oaks in an English winter; on others, big strands of twisted fibres marked the scars and joints where mighty boughs had been torn away by main force; while, elsewhere, bare stumps alone remained to mark the former presence of some noble dracæna or some gigantic banyan.  Bread-fruits and cocoanuts lay tossed in the wildest confusion on the ground; the banana and plantain-patches were beaten level with the soil or buried deep in the mud; many of the huts had given way entirely; abundant wreckage strewed every corner of the island.  It was an awful sight.  Muriel shuddered to herself to see how much the two that night had passed through.

What the outer fringing reef had suffered from the storm they hardly knew as yet; but from the door of the hut Felix could see for himself how even the calm waters of the inner lagoon had been lashed into wild fury by the fierce swoop of the tempest.  Round the entire atoll the solid conglomerate coral floor was scooped under, broken up, chewed fine by the waves, or thrown in vast fragments on the beach of the island.  By the eastern shore, in particular, just opposite their hut, Felix observed a regular wall of many feet in height, piled up by the waves like the familiar Chesil Beach near his old home in Dorsetshire.  It was the shelter of that temporary barrier alone, no doubt, that had preserved their huts last night from the full fury of the gale, and that had allowed the natives to congregate in such numbers prone on their faces in the mud and rain, upon the unconsecrated ground outside their taboo-line.

But now not an islander was to be seen within ear-shot.  All had gone away to look after their ruined huts or their beaten-down plantain-patches, leaving the cruel gods, who, as they thought, had wrought all the mischief out of pure wantonness, to repent at leisure the harm done during the night to their obedient votaries.

Felix was just about to cross the taboo-line and walk down to the shore to examine the barrier, when Toko, his Shadow, laying his hand on his shoulder with more genuine interest and affection than he had ever yet shown, exclaimed, with some horror, “Oh, no!  Not that!  Don’t dare to go outside!  It would be very dangerous for you.  If my people were to catch you on profane soil just now, there’s no saying what harm they might do to you.”

“Why so?” Felix exclaimed, in surprise.  “Last night, surely, they were all prayers and promises and vows and entreaties.”

The young man nodded his head in acquiescence.  “Ah, yes; last night,” he answered.  “That was very well then.  Vows were sore needed.  The storm was raging, and you were within your taboo.  How could they dare to touch you, a mighty god of the tempest, at the very moment when you were rending their banyan-trees and snapping their cocoanut stems with your mighty arms like so many little chicken-bones?  Even Tu-Kila-Kila himself, I expect, the very high god, lay frightened in his temple, cowering by his tree, annoyed at your wrath; he sent Fire and Water among the worshippers, no doubt, to offer up vows and to appease your anger.”

Then Felix remembered, as his Shadow spoke, that, as a matter of fact, he had observed the men who usually wore the red and white feather cloaks among the motley crowd of grovelling natives who lay flat on their faces in the mud of the cleared space the night before, and prayed hard for mercy.  Only they were not wearing their robes of office at the moment, in accordance with a well-known savage custom; they had come naked and in disgrace, as befits all suppliants.  They had left behind them the insignia of their rank in their own shaken huts, and bowed down their bare backs to the rain and the lightning.

“Yes, I saw them among the other islanders,” Felix answered, half-smiling, but prudently remaining within the taboo-line, as his Shadow advised him.

Toko kept his hand still on his master’s shoulder.  “Oh, king,” he said, beseechingly, and with great solemnity, “I am doing wrong to warn you; I am breaking a very great Taboo.  I don’t know what harm may come to me for telling you.  Perhaps Tu-Kila-Kila will burn me to ashes with one glance of his eyes.  He may know this minute what I’m saying here alone to you.”

It is hard for a white man to meet scruples like this; but Felix was bold enough to answer outright:  “Tu-Kila-Kila knows nothing of the sort, and can never find out.  Take my word for it, Toko, nothing that you say to me will ever reach Tu-Kila-Kila.”

The Shadow looked at him doubtfully, and trembled as he spoke.  “I like you, Korong,” he said, with a genuinely truthful ring in his voice.  “You seem to me so kind and good—­so different from other gods, who are very cruel.  You never beat me.  Nobody I ever served treated me as well or as kindly as you have done.  And for your sake I will even dare to break taboo—­if you’re quite, quite sure Tu-Kila-Kila will never discover it.”

“I’m quite sure,” Felix answered, with perfect confidence.  “I know it for certain.  I swear a great oath to it.”

“You swear by Tu-Kila-Kila himself?” the young savage asked, anxiously.

“I swear by Tu-Kila-Kila himself,” Felix replied at once.  “I swear, without doubt.  He can never know it.”

“That is a great Taboo,” the Shadow went on, meditatively, stroking Felix’s arm.  “A very great Taboo indeed.  A terrible medicine.  And you are a god; I can trust you.  Well, then, you see, the secret is this:  you are Korong, but you are a stranger, and you don’t understand the ways of Boupari.  If for three days after the end of this storm, which Tu-Kila-Kila has sent Fire and Water to pray and vow against, you or the Queen of the Clouds show yourselves outside your own taboo-line—­why, then, the people are clear of sin; whoever takes you may rend you alive; they will tear you limb from limb and cut you into pieces.”

“Why so?” Felix asked, aghast at this discovery.  They seemed to live on a perpetual volcano in this wonderful island; and a volcano ever breaking out in fresh places.  They could never get to the bottom of its horrible superstitions.

“Because you ate the storm-apple,” the Shadow answered, confidently.  “That was very wrong.  You brought the tempest upon us yourselves by your own trespass; therefore, by the custom of Boupari, which we learn in the mysteries, you become full Korong for the sacrifice at once.  That makes the term for you.  The people will give you all your dues; then they will say, ’We are free; we have bought you with a price; we have brought your cocoanuts.  No sin attaches to us; we are righteous; we are righteous.’  And then they will kill you, and Fire and Water will roast you and boil you.”

“But only if we go outside the taboo-line?” Felix asked, anxiously.

“Only if you go outside the taboo-line,” the Shadow replied, nodding a hasty assent.  “Inside it, till your term comes, even Tu-Kila-Kila himself, the very high god, whose meat we all are, dare never hurt you.”

“Till our term comes?” Felix inquired, once more astonished and perplexed.  “What do you mean by that, my Shadow?”

But the Shadow was either bound by some superstitious fear, or else incapable of putting himself into Felix’s point of view.  “Why, till you are full Korong,” he answered, like one who speaks of some familiar fact, as who should say, till you are forty years old, or, till your beard grows white.  “Of course, by and by, you will be full Korong.  I cannot help you then; but, till that time comes, I would like to do my best by you.  You have been very kind to me.  I tell you much.  More than this, it would not be lawful for me to mention.”

And that was the most that, by dexterous questioning, Felix could ever manage to get out of his mysterious Shadow.

“At the end of three days we will be safe, though?” he inquired at last, after all other questions failed to produce an answer.

“Oh, yes, at the end of three days the storm will have blown over,” the young man answered, easily.  “All will then be well.  You may venture out once more.  The rain will have dried over all the island.  Fire and Water will have no more power over you.”

Felix went back to the hut to inform Muriel of this new peril thus suddenly sprung upon them.  Poor Muriel, now almost worn out with endless terrors, received it calmly.  “I’m growing accustomed to it all, Felix,” she answered, resignedly.  “If only I know that you will keep your promise, and never let me fall alive into these wretches’ hands, I shall feel quite safe.  Oh, Felix, do you know when you took me in your arms like that last night, in spite of everything, I felt positively happy.”

About ten o’clock they were suddenly roused by a sound of many natives, coming in quick succession, single file, to the huts, and shouting aloud, “Oh, King of the Rain, oh, Queen of the Clouds, come forth for our vows!  Receive your presents!”

Felix went forth to the door to look.  With a warning look in his eyes, his Shadow followed him.  The natives were now coming up by dozens at a time, bringing with them, in great arm-loads, fallen cocoanuts and breadfruits, and branches of bananas, and large draggled clusters of half-ripe plantains.

“Why, what are all these?” Felix exclaimed in surprise.

His Shadow looked up at him, as if amused at the absurd simplicity of the question.  “These are yours, of course,” he said; “yours and the Queen’s; they are the windfalls you made.  Did you not knock them all off the trees for yourselves when you were coming down in such sheets from the sky last evening?”

Felix wrung his hands in positive despair.  It was clear, indeed, that to the minds of the natives there was no distinguishing personally between himself and Muriel, and the rain or the cyclone.

“Will they bring them all in?” he asked, gazing in alarm at the huge pile of fruits the natives were making outside the huts.

“Yes, all,” the Shadow answered; “they are vows; they are godsends; but if you like, you can give some of them back.  If you give much back, of course it will make my people less angry with you.”

Felix advanced near the line, holding his hand up before him to command silence.  As he did so, he was absolutely appalled himself at the perfect storm of execration and abuse which his appearance excited.  The foremost natives, brandishing their clubs and stone-tipped spears, or shaking their fists by the line, poured forth upon his devoted head at once all the most frightful curses of the Polynesian vocabulary.  “Oh, evil god,” they cried aloud with angry faces, “oh, wicked spirit! you have a bad heart.  See what a wrong you have purposely done us.  If your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this?  If you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together.  Don’t skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. We are not afraid, who are only men.  Why are you afraid of us?”

Felix tried to speak once more, but the din drowned his voice.  As he paused, the people set up their loud shouts again.  “Oh, you wicked god!  You eat the storm-apple!  You have wrought us much harm.  You have spoiled our harvest.  How you came down in great sheets last night!  It was pitiful, pitiful!  We would like to kill you.  You might have taken our bread-fruits and our bananas, if you would; we give you them freely; they are yours; here, take them.  We feed you well; we make you many offerings.  But why did you wish to have our huts also?  Why did you beat down our young plantations and break our canoes against the beach of the island?  That shows a bad heart!  You are an evil god!  You dare not defend yourself.  Come out and meet us.”