The Great Taboo

Chapter IX. Sowing the Wind.

Vaguely and indefinitely one terrible truth had been forced by slow degrees upon Felix's mind; whatever else Korong meant, it implied at least some fearful doom in store, sooner or later, for the persons who bore it. How awful that doom might be, he could hardly imagine; but he must devote himself henceforth to the task of discovering what its nature was, and, if possible, of averting it.

Yet how to reconcile this impending terror with the other obvious facts of the situation? the fact that they were considered divine beings and treated like gods; and the fact that the whole population seemed really to regard them with a devotion and kindliness closely bordering on religious reverence? If Korongs were gods, why should the people want to kill them? If they meant to kill them, why pay them meanwhile such respect and affection?

One point at least was now, however, quite clear to Felix. While the natives, especially the women, displayed toward both of them in their personal aspect a sort of regretful sympathy, he could not help noticing at the same time that the men, at any rate, regarded them also largely in an impersonal light, as a sort of generalized abstraction of the powers of nature--an embodied form of the rain and the weather. The islanders were anxious to keep their white guests well supplied, well fed, and in perfect health, not so much for the strangers' sakes as for their own advantage; they evidently considered that if anything went wrong with either of their two new gods, corresponding misfortunes might happen to their crops and the produce of their bread-fruit groves. Some mysterious sympathy was held to subsist between the persons of the castaways and the state of the weather. The natives effusively thanked them after welcome rain, and looked askance at them, scowling, after long dry spells. It was for this, no doubt, that they took such pains to provide them with attentive Shadows, and to gird round their movements with taboos of excessive stringency. Nothing that the new-comers said or did was indifferent, it seemed, to the welfare of the community; plenty and prosperity depended upon the passing state of Muriel's health, and famine or drought might be brought about at any moment by the slightest imprudence in Felix's diet.

How stringent these taboos really were Felix learned by slow degrees alone to realize. From the very beginning he had observed, to be sure, that they might only eat and drink the food provided for them; that they were supplied with a clean and fresh-built hut, as well as with brand-new cocoanut cups, spoons, and platters; that no litter of any sort was allowed to accumulate near their enclosure; and that their Shadows never left them, or went out of their sight, by day or by night, for a single moment. Now, however, he began to perceive also that the Shadows were there for that very purpose, to watch over them, as it were, like guards, on behalf of the community; to see that they ate or drank no tabooed object; to keep them from heedlessly transgressing any unwritten law of the creed of Boupari; and to be answerable for their good behavior generally. They were partly servants, it was true, and partly sureties; but they were partly also keepers, and keepers who kept a close and constant watch upon the persons of their prisoners. Once or twice Felix, growing tired for the moment of this continual surveillance, had tried to give Toko the slip, and to stroll away from his hut, unattended, for a walk through the island, in the early morning, before his Shadow had waked; but on each such occasion he found to his surprise that, as he opened the hut door, the Shadow rose at once and confronted him angrily, with an inquiring eye; and in time he perceived that a thin string was fastened to the bottom of the door, the other end of which was tied to the Shadow's ankle; and this string could not be cut without letting fall a sort of latch or bar which closed the door outside, only to be raised again by some external person.

Clearly, it was intended that the Korong should have no chance of escape without the knowledge of the Shadow, who, as Felix afterward learned, would have paid with his own body by a cruel death for the Korong's disappearance.

He might as well have tried to escape his own shadow as to escape the one the islanders had tacked on to him.

All Felix's energies were now devoted to the arduous task of discovering what Korong really meant, and what possibility he might have of saving Muriel from the mysterious fate that seemed to be held in store for them.

One evening, about six weeks after their arrival in the island, the young Englishman was strolling by himself (after the sun sank low in heaven) along a pretty tangled hill-side path, overhung with lianas and rope-like tropical creepers, while his faithful Shadow lingered a step or two behind, keeping a sharp lookout meanwhile on all his movements.

Near the top of a little crag of volcanic rock, in the center of the hills, he came suddenly upon a hut with a cleared space around it, somewhat neater in appearance than any of the native cottages he had yet seen, and surrounded by a broad white belt of coral sand, exactly like that which ringed round and protected their own enclosure. But what specially attracted Felix's attention was the fact that the space outside this circle had been cleared into a regular flower-garden, quite European in the definiteness and orderliness of its quaint arrangement.

"Why, who lives here?" Felix asked in Polynesian, turning round in surprise to his respectful Shadow.

The Shadow waved his hand vaguely in an expansive way toward the sky, as he answered, with a certain air of awe, often observable in his speech when taboos were in question, "The King of Birds. A very great god. He speaks the bird language."

"Who is he?" Felix inquired, taken aback, wondering vaguely to himself whether here, perchance, he might have lighted upon some stray and shipwrecked compatriot.

"He comes from the sun like yourselves," the Shadow answered, all deference, but with obvious reserve. "He is a very great god. I may not speak much of him. But he is not Korong. He is greater than that, and less. He is Tula, the same as Tu-Kila-Kila."

"Is he as powerful as Tu-Kila-Kila?" Felix asked, with intense interest.

"Oh, no, he's not nearly so powerful as that," the Shadow answered, half terrified at the bare suggestion. "No god in heaven or earth is like Tu-Kila-Kila. This one is only king of the birds, which is a little province, while Tu-Kila-Kila is king of heaven and earth, of plants and animals, of gods and men, of all things created. At his nod the sky shakes and the rocks tremble. But still, this god is Tula, like Tu-Kila-Kila. He is not for a year. He goes on forever, till some other supplants him."

"You say he comes from the sun," Felix put in, devoured with curiosity. "And he speaks the bird language? What do you mean by that? Does he speak like the Queen of the Clouds and myself when we talk together?"

"Oh, dear, no," the Shadow answered, in a very confident tone. "He doesn't speak the least bit in the world like that. He speaks shriller and higher, and still more bird-like. It is chatter, chatter, chatter, like the parrots in a tree; tirra, tirra, tirra; tarra, tarra, tarra; la, la, la; lo, lo, lo; lu, lu, lu; li la. And he sings to himself all the time. He sings this way--"

And then the Shadow, with that wonderful power of accurate mimicry which is so strong in all natural human beings, began to trill out at once, with a very good Parisian accent, a few lines from a well-known song in "La Fille de Madame Angot:"

"Quand on conspi-re,
   Quand sans frayeur
 On pent se di-re
   Conspirateur,
 Pour tout le mon-de
   Il faut avoir
 Perruque blon-de
   Et collet noir--
 Perruque blon-de
   Et collet noir."

"That's how the King of the Birds sings," the Shadow said, as he finished, throwing back his head, and laughing with all his might at his own imitation. "So funny, isn't it? It's exactly like the song of the pink-crested parrot."

"Why, Toko, it's French," Felix exclaimed, using the Fijian word for a Frenchman, which the Shadow, of course, on his remote island, had never before heard. "How on earth did he come here?"

"I can't tell you," Toko answered, waving his arms seaward. "He came from the sun, like yourselves. But not in a sun-boat. It had no fire. He came in a canoe, all by himself. And Mali says"--here the Shadow lowered his voice to a most mysterious whisper--"he's a man-a-oui-oui."

Felix quivered with excitement. "Man-a-oui-oui" is the universal name over semi-civilized Polynesia for a Frenchman. Felix seized upon it with avidity. "A man-a-oui-oui!" he cried, delighted. "How strange! How wonderful! I must go in at once to his hut and see him!"

He had lifted his foot and was just going to cross the white line of coral-sand, when his Shadow, catching him suddenly and stoutly round the waist, pulled him back from the enclosure with every sign of horror, alarm, and astonishment. "No, you can't go," he cried, grappling with him with all his force, yet using him very tenderly for all that, as becomes a god. "Taboo! Taboo there!"

"But I am a god myself," Felix cried, insisting upon his privileges. If you have to submit to the disadvantages of taboo, you may as well claim its advantages as well. "The King of Fire and the King of Water crossed my taboo line. Why shouldn't I cross equally the King of the Birds', then?"

"So you might--as a rule," the Shadow answered with promptitude. "You are both gods. Your taboos do not cross. You may visit each other. You may transgress one another's lines without danger of falling dead on the ground as common men would do if they broke taboo-lines. But this is the Month of Birds. The king is in retreat. No man may see him except his own Shadow, the Little Cockatoo, who brings him his food and drink. Do you see that hawk's head, stuck upon the post by the door at the side. That is his Special Taboo. He keeps it for this month. Even gods must respect that sign, for a reason which it would be very bad medicine to mention. While the Month of Birds lasts, no man may look upon the king or hear him. If they did, they would die, and the carrion birds would eat them. Come away. This is dangerous."

Scarcely were the words well out of his mouth when from the recesses of the hut a rollicking French voice was heard, trilling out merrily:

"Quand on con-spi-re,
   Quand, sans frayeur--"

Without waiting for more, the Shadow seized Felix's arm in an agony of terror. "Come away!" he cried, hurriedly, "come away! What will become of us? This is horrible, horrible! We have broken taboo. We have heard the god's voice. The sky will fall on us. If his Shadow were to find it out and tell my people, my people would tear us limb from limb. Quick, quick! Hide away! Let us run fast through the forest before any man discover it."

The Shadow's voice rang deep with alarm. Felix felt he dare not trifle with this superstition. Profound as was his curiosity about the mysterious Frenchman, he was compelled to bottle up his eagerness and anxiety for the moment, and patiently wait till the Month of Birds had run its course, and taken its inconvenient taboo along with it. These limitations were terrible. Yet he counted much upon the information the Frenchman could give him. The man had been some time on the island, it was clear, and doubtless he understood its ways thoroughly; he might cast some light at last upon the Korong mystery.

So he went back through the woods with a heart somewhat lighter.

Not far from their own huts he met Muriel and Mali.

As they walked home together, Felix told his companion in a very few words the strange discovery about the Frenchman, and the impenetrable taboo by which he was at present surrounded. Muriel drew a deep sigh. "Oh, Felix," she said--for they were naturally by this time very much at home with one another, "did you ever know anything so dreadful as the mystery of these taboos? It seems as if we should never get really to the bottom of them. Mali's always springing some new one upon me. I don't believe we shall ever be able to leave the island--we're so hedged round with taboos. Even if we were to see a ship to-day, I don't believe they'd allow us to signal it."

There was a red sunset; a lurid, tropical, red-and-green sunset. It boded mischief.

They were passing by some huts at the moment, and over the stockade of one of them a tree was hanging with small yellow fruits, which Felix knew well in Fiji as wholesome and agreeable. He broke off a small branch as he passed; and offered a couple thoughtlessly to Muriel. She took them in her fingers, and tasted them gingerly. "They're not so bad," she said, taking another from the bough. "They're very much like gooseberries."

At the same moment, Felix popped one into his own mouth, and swallowed it without thinking.

Almost before they knew what had happened, with the same extraordinary rapidity as in the case of the wedding, the people in the cottages ran out, with every sign of fear and apprehension, and, seizing the branch from Felix's hands, began upbraiding the two Shadows for their want of attention.

"We couldn't help it," Toko exclaimed, with every appearance of guilt and horror on his face. "They were much too sharp for us. Their hearts are black. How could we two interfere? These gods are so quick! They had picked and eaten them before we ever saw them."

One of the men raised his hand with a threatening air--but against the Shadow, not against the sacred person of Felix. "He will be ill," he said, angrily, pointing toward the white man; "and she will, too. Their hearts are indeed black. They have sown the seed of the wind. They have both of them eaten of it. They will both be ill. You deserve to die! And what will come now to our trees and plantations?"

The crowd gathered round them, cursing low and horribly. The two terrified Europeans slunk off to their huts, unaware of their exact crime, and closely followed by a scowling but despondent mob of natives. As they crossed their sacred boundary, Muriel cried, with a sudden outburst of tears, "Oh, Felix, what on earth shall we ever do to get rid of this terrible, unendurable godship!"

The natives without set up a great shout of horror. "See, see! she cries!" they exclaimed, in indescribable panic. "She has eaten the storm-fruit, and already she cries! Oh, clouds, restrain yourselves! Oh, great queen, mercy! Whatever will become of us and our poor huts and gardens!"

And for hours they crouched around, beating their breasts and shrieking.

That evening, Muriel sat up late in Felix's hut, with Mali by her side, too frightened to go back into her own alone before those angry people. And all the time, just beyond the barrier line, they could hear, above the whistle of the wind around the hut, the droning voices of dozens of natives, cowering low on the ground; they seemed to be going through some litany or chant, as if to deprecate the result of this imprudent action.

"What are they doing outside?" Felix asked of his Shadow at last, after a peculiarly long wail of misery.

And the Shadow made answer, in very solemn tones, "They are trying to propitiate your mightiness, and to avert the omen, lest the rain should fall, and the wind should blow, and the storm-cloud should burst over the island to destroy them."

Then Felix remembered suddenly of himself that the season when this storm-fruit, or storm-apple, as they called it, was ripe in Fiji, was also the season when the great Pacific cyclones most often swept over the land in full fury--storms unexampled on any other sea, like that famous one which wrecked so many European men-of-war a few years since in the harbor of Samoa.

And without, the wail came louder and clearer still! "If you sow the bread-fruit seed, you will reap the breadfruit. If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. They have eaten the storm-fruit. Oh, great king, save us!"