The Great Taboo | Page 5

It was strange, to be sure, as Felix
Thurstan had said, that such unspeakable heathen orgies should be
taking place within sight of a passing Christian English steamer. But if

only he had known or reflected to what sort of land he was trying now
to struggle ashore with Muriel, he might well have doubted whether it
were not better to let her perish where she was, in the pure clear ocean,
rather than to submit an English girl to the possibility of undergoing
such horrible heathen rites and ceremonies.
For on the island of Boupari it was high feast with the worshippers of
their god that night. The sun had turned on the Tropic of Capricorn at
noon, and was making his way northward, toward the equator once
more; and his votaries, as was their wont, had all come forth to do him
honor in due season, and to pay their respects, in the inmost and
sacredest grove on the island, to his incarnate representative, the living
spirit of trees and fruits and vegetation, the very high god, the divine
Tu-Kila-Kila!
Early in the evening, as soon as the sun's rim had disappeared beneath
the ocean, a strange noise boomed forth from the central shrine of
Boupari. Those who heard it clapped their hands to their ears and ran
hastily forward. It was a noise like distant rumbling thunder, or the
whir of some great English mill or factory; and at its sound every
woman on the island threw herself on the ground prostrate, with her
face in the dust, and waited there reverently till the audible voice of the
god had once more subsided. For no woman knew how that sound was
produced. Only the grown men, initiated into the mysteries of the
shrine when they came of age at the tattooing ceremony, were aware
that the strange, buzzing, whirring noise was nothing more or less than
the cry of the bull-roarer.
A bull-roarer, as many English schoolboys know, is merely a piece of
oblong wood, pointed at either end, and fastened by a leather thong at
one corner. But when whirled round the head by practised priestly
hands, it produces a low rumbling noise like the wheels of a distant
carriage, growing gradually louder and clearer, from moment to
moment, till at last it waxes itself into a frightful din, or bursts into
perfect peals of imitation thunder. Then it decreases again once more,
as gradually as it rose, becoming fainter and ever fainter, like thunder
as it recedes, till the horrible bellowing, as of supernatural bulls, dies

away in the end, by slow degrees, into low and soft and imperceptible
murmurs.
But when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at
whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full
swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure,
and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest
the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume
him. But the women, knowing themselves unworthy to face the dread
presence of the high god in his wrath, rush wildly from the spot, and,
flinging themselves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust,
wait patiently till the voice of their deity is no longer audible.
And as the bull-roarer on Boupari rang out with wild echoes from the
coral caverns in the central grove that evening, Tu-Kila-Kila, their god,
rose slowly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a deity revealed,
before his reverential worshippers.
As he rose, a hushed whisper ran wave-like through the dense throng of
dusky forms that bent low, like corn beneath the wind, before him,
"Tu-Kila-Kila rises! He rises to speak! Hush! for the voice of the
mighty man-god!"
The god, looking around him superciliously with a cynical air of
contempt, stood forward with a firm and elastic step before his silent
worshippers. He was a stalwart savage, in the very prime of life, tall,
lithe, and active. His figure was that of a man well used to command;
but his face, though handsome, was visibly marked by every external
sign of cruelty, lust, and extreme bloodthirstiness. One might have said,
merely to look at him, he was a being debased by all forms of brutal
and hateful self-indulgence. A baleful light burned in his keen gray
eyes. His lips were thick, full, purple, and wistful.
"My people may look upon me," he said, in a strangely affable voice,
standing forward and smiling with a curious half-cruel,
half-compassionate smile upon his awe-struck followers. "On every
day of the sun's course but this, none save the ministers dedicated to the
service of Tu-Kila-Kila dare gaze unhurt upon his sacred person. If any

other did,