The Great Taboo

AN UNFINISHED TALE.

For a minute or two Methuselah mumbled inarticulately to himself.  Then, to their intense discomfiture, he began once more:  “In the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, King Charles the Second, I, Nathaniel Cross—­”

“Oh, this will never do,” Felix cried.  “We haven’t got yet to the secret at all.  Muriel, do try to set him right.  He must waste no breath.  We can’t afford now to let him go all over it.”

Muriel stretched out her hand and soothed the bird gently as before.  “Having slain, therefore, my predecessor in the high godship,” she suggested, in the same singsong voice as the parrot’s.

To her immense relief, Methuselah took the hint with charming docility.

“In the high godship,” he went on, mechanically, where he had stopped.  “And this here is the manner whereby I obtained it.  The Too-Keela-Keela from time to time doth generally appoint any castaway stranger that comes to the island to the post of Korong—­that is to say, an annual god or victim.  For, as the year doth renew itself at each change of seasons, so do these carribals in their gentilisme believe and hold that the gods of the seasons—­to wit, the King of the Rain, the Queen of the Clouds, the Lord of Green Leaves, the King of Fruits, and others—­must needs be sleain and renewed at the diverse solstices.  Now, it so happened that I, on my arrival in the island, was appointed Korong, and promoted to the post of King of the Rain, having a native woman assigned me as Queen of the Clouds, with whom I might keep company.  This woman being, after her kind, enamored of me, and anxious to escape her own fate, to be sleain by my side, did betray to me that secret which they call in their tongue the Great Taboo, and which had been betrayed to herself in turn by a native man, her former lover.  For the men are instructed in these things in the mysteries when they coom of age, but not the women.

“And the Great Taboo is this:  No man can becoom a Too-Keela-Keela unless he first sleay the man in whom the high god is incarnate for the moment.  But in order that he may sleay him, he must also himself be a full Korong, only those persons who are already gods being capable for the highest post in their hierarchy; even as with ourselves, none but he that is a deacon may become a priest, and none but he that is a priest may be made a bishop.  For this reason, then, the Too-Keela-Keela prefers to advance a stranger to the post of Korong, seeing that such a person will not have been initiated in the mysteries of the island, and therefore will not be aware of those sundry steps which must needs be taken of him that would inherit the godship.

“Furthermore, even a Korong can only obtain the highest rank of Too-Keela-Keela if he order all things according to the forms and ceremonies of the Taboo parfectly.  For these gentiles are very careful of the levitical parts of their religion, deriving the same, as it seems to me, from the polity of the Hebrews, the fame of whose tabernacle must sure have gone forth through the ends of the woorld, and the knowledge of whose temple must have been yet more wide dispersed by Solomon, his ships, when they came into these parts to fetch gold from Ophir.  And the ceremony is, that before any man may sleay the ’arthly tenement of Too-Keela-Keela and inherit his soul, which is in very truth, as they do think the god himself, he must needs fight with the person in whom Too-Keela-Keela doth then dwell, and for this reason:  If the holder of the soul can defend himself in fight, then it is clear that his strength is not one whit decayed, nor is his vigor feailing; nor yet has his assailant been able to take his soul from him.  But if the Korong in open fight do sleay the person in whom Too-Keela-Keela dwells, he becometh at once a Too-Keela-Keela himself—­that is to say, in their tongue, the Lord of Lords, because he hath taken the life of him that preceded him.

“Yet so intricate is the theology and practice of these loathsome savages, that not even now have I explained it in full to you, O shipwrecked mariner, for your aid and protection.  For a Korong, though it be a part of his privilege to contend, if he will, with Too-Keela-Keela for the high godship and princedom of this isle, may only do so at certain appointed times, places, and seasons.  Above all things, it is necessary that he should first find out the hiding-place of the soul of Too-Keela-Keela.  For though the Too-Keela-Keela for the time that is, be animated by the god, yet, for greater security, he doth not keep his soul in his own body, but, being above all things the god of fruitfulness and generation, who causes women to bear children, and the plant called taro to bring forth its increase, he keepeth his soul in the great sacred tree behind his temple, which is thus the Father of All Trees, and the chiefest abode of the great god Too-Keela-Keela.

“Nor does Too-Keela-Keela’s soul abide equally in every part of this aforesaid tree; but in a certain bough of it, resembling a mistletoe, which hath yellow leaves, and, being broken off, groweth ever green and yellow afresh; which is the central mystery of all their Sathanic religion.  For in this very bough—­easy to be discerned by the eye among the green leaves of the tree—­” the bird paused and faltered.

Muriel leaned forward in an agony of excitement.  “Among the green leaves of the tree—­” she went on soothing him.

Her voice seemed to give the parrot a fresh impulse to speak. “—­Is contained, as it were,” he continued, feebly, “the divine essence itself, the soul and life of Too-Keela-Keela.  Whoever, then, being a full Korong, breaks this off, hath thus possessed himself of the very god in person.  This, however, he must do by exceeding stealth; for Too-Keela-Keela, or rather the man that bears that name, being the guardian and defender of the great god, walks ever up and down, by day and by night, in exceeding great cunning, armed with a spear and with a hatchet of stone, around the root of the tree, watching jealously over the branch which is, as he believes, his own soul and being.  I, therefore, being warned of the Taboo by the woman that was my consort, did craftily, near the appointed time for my own death, creep out of my hut, and my consort, having induced one of the wives of Too-Keela-Keela to make him drunken with too much of that intoxicating drink which they do call kava, did proceed—­did proceed—­did proceed—­In the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, King Charles the Second—­”

Muriel bent forward once more in an agony of suspense.  “Oh, go on, good Poll!” she cried.  “Go on.  Remember it.  Did proceed to—­”

The single syllable helped Methuselah’s memory. “—­Did proceed to stealthily pluck the bough, and, having shown the same to Fire and Water, the guardians of the Taboo, did boldly challenge to single combat the bodily tenement of the god, with spear and hatchet, provided for me in accordance with ancient custom by Fire and Water.  In which combat, Heaven mercifully befriending me against my enemy, I did coom out conqueror; and was thereupon proclaimed Too-Keela-Keela myself, with ceremonies too many and barbarous to mention, lest I raise your gorge at them.  But that which is most important to tell you for your own guidance and safety, O mariner, is this—­that being the sole and only end I have in imparting this history to so strange a messenger—­that after you have by craft plucked the sacred branch, and by force of arms over-cootn Too-Keela-Keela, it is by all means needful, whether you will or not, that submitting to the hateful and gentile custom of this people—­of this people—­Pretty Poll!  Pretty Poll!  God save—­God save the king!  Death to the nineteenth year of the reign of all arrant knaves and roundheads.”

He dropped his head on his breast, and blinked his white eyelids more feebly than ever.  His strength was failing him fast.  The Soul of all dead parrots was wearing out.  M. Peyron, who had stood by all this time, not knowing in any way what might be the value of the bird’s disclosures, came forward and stroked poor Methuselah with his caressing hand.  But Methuselah was incapable now of any further effort.  He opened his blind eyes sleepily for the last, last time, and stared around him with a blank stare at the fading universe.  “God save the king!” he screamed aloud with a terrible gasp, true to his colors still.  “God save the king, and to hell with all papists!”

Then he fell off his perch, stone dead, on the ground.  They were never to hear the conclusion of that strange, quaint message from a forgotten age to our more sceptical century.

Felix looked at Muriel, and Muriel looked at Felix.  They could hardly contain themselves with awe and surprise.  The parrot’s words were so human, its speech was so real to them, that they felt as though the English Tu-Kila-Kila of two hundred years back had really and truly been speaking to them from that perch; it was a human creature indeed that lay dead before them.  Felix raised the warm body from the ground with positive reverence.  “We will bury it decently,” he said in French, turning to M. Peyron.  “He was a plucky bird, indeed, and he has carried out his master’s intentions nobly.”

As they spoke, a little rustling in the jungle hard by attracted their attention.  Felix turned to look.  A stealthy brown figure glided away in silence through the tangled brushwood.  M. Peyron started.  “We are observed, monsieur,” he said.  “We must look out for squalls!  It is one of the Eyes of Tu-Kila-Kila!”

“Let him do his worst!” Felix answered.  “We know his secret now, and can protect ourselves against him.  Let us return to the shade, monsieur, and talk this all over.  Methuselah has indeed given us something to-day very serious to think about.”