The Great Taboo

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.”