Tales of the South Pacific (37 page)

"OK," Fry had said. He could never stay angry at anyone. "Would you like us to bring you back some pineapples?" The officer had looked up warmly, clutching at even the straws of friendship. "Would you?" he asked eagerly. "I don't want to take the ride. I get seasick."

"Boy," Tony laughed. "You should see me get seasick!"

Aboard the crash boat Tony and Benoway met the officers and crew and a ruddy little man who wore the cross of the Chaplains' Corps. "This is Chappy Jones," Billis said. "From our outfit. I was tellin' him about the new religion I found. Even promised him I'd get him tattooed if he wished!" Billis laughed and the little chaplain beamed.

"Ah, yes!" he said. "And I presume you are the doctor?"

"Yes," Benoway nodded.

"Do you think there might really be an epidemic?" the chaplain asked. "What?"

"That epidemic you have to go over to investigate," Billis interrupted. "Merely normal precautions," Fry interposed, glaring at Luther. "What's this..." Benoway began.

"It's a rare opportunity for me!" the chaplain said. "You know, I teach comparative religion at the seminary. Vanicoro is the tabu island in these parts. It's also the leper's island. Interesting, almost a parallel to our medieval belief that the very sick were special wards of God."

The crash boat was gathering speed through the blue waters of Pallikulo Bay. Overhead the early morning planes set out for Guadal and Noumea. Far up the bay the great floating dry-dock was being assembled, and to the west the daily halo of cloud was gathering upon the gaunt mountains of Espiritu Santo.

"Lovely day for a trip to a sacred island," Benoway said.

"Wonderful opportunity for all of us," the chaplain said. "I don't know of anything in the world quite like this pig worship. It gives us a unique opportunity to see the mind of primitive man at work calling forth his gods."

"What do you mean, chaplain?"

"Here we see a religion spring full blown from the mind of man. We see it flower in answer to man's expressed needs."

"Then Billis was telling the truth when he said the pigs were the religion?"

"Ab-so-lute-ly," the ruddy chaplain replied. "The religion is well known in sociological circles. Well known. Well documented. As I said, it's unique in this small circle of islands. From an airplane you can see with a glance the entire region in which it flourishes."

"What's the religion like?" Benoway asked.

"Primarily it's a monument to man's perversity. There is no place on earth where living is so easy as on these islands. They are rich, laden with food, and before the white man came, inordinately healthy. No one had to work, for the world was full of fruit and vegetables, and in the woods there was enough wild boar for everyone. You would have to call it a paradise, even though most of you may never want to see it again.

"But there was one flaw. Amid all this luxury there was no reason for living. That may sound like a silly statement, but it is literally true. There was no reason for living. Men fought bravely, but they didn't collect heads to prove it. They ate one another, but when the meal was done, it was done. They traveled nowhere. They built nothing. But most of all they worshipped no gods. There was nothing in life bigger than they were. Like all people, they had some vague idea of life after death, but their conceptions were not what we call codified. All they had were some rough rules of behavior. Don't kill women. Truce in battle. Things like that. But up here," the chaplain said, tapping his temple, "there was a void. There was no reason for doing anything."

"Are you making this up?" Fry asked in a whimsical manner.

"Oh, no!" the chaplain assured him. "All a matter of record. What do you suppose these people living in their earthly paradise did? Believe it or not, they decided to make life more difficult for themselves. They created, at one swoop, something to live for. Now believe me when I tell you that they took one of the commonest things in their acquaintance, one of the dirtiest: a jungle pig. And they made that pig the center of their aspirations. In one shot they built themselves a god. And the important thing about it is this: When the pig was dead and had some eating value, it was no longer of any merit. Then it wasn't a god any more. Only when the pig lived in his filthy misery, and grew tusks back into his own face, and ate your crops, and took your time, and frightened you when he got sick, only then was the pig a god! In other words, the most carefree people on earth consciously made their lives more difficult, more unhappy, and much more complex." The chaplain stopped and stared eastward at Vanicoro. The sacred island was dim and symmetrical in the morning light. Clouds hung over the topmost volcano where the sacred lake was hidden.

"Are you getting seasick?" the chaplain asked.

"I feel pretty good so far," Benoway replied.

"That's quite a story, chaplain," Tony said.

"This interesting part is still to come," the slightly green chaplain said. "I think I'd better stand over here by the rail. Not only did the natives say that their god had spiritual value only so long as he was a burden. They also say that no pig has social value until it is given away to a friend. If you eat your own pig, you are a glutton and a miser. If you give your pig to somebody else to eat, you're a great man."

"Somewhat like the old Christian religions," Tony mused.

"Very similar," the chaplain agreed. "True spirituality has usually seen that man is happier giving than getting."

"What changed that in our civilization?" Fry asked.

"Some sort of compromise with progress. If you give away all the time, you lose the incentive to gain more, and the incentive to gain is the incentive to create. American civilization has grown too far toward the creating and too far away from the giving. It'll adjust later on. It'll have to. Men will go mad from too much getting. They always have in the past."

"On the other hand," Fry argued, "you'll have to admit that the Melanesian ideal of all giving hasn't produced much."

The chaplain nodded and swept his hand about the horizon. "In these islands you have the lowest ebb of civilization in the world. I don't think mankind can sink much lower than these people. Of course, sink is an unfair word. They never reached a point any higher than they are now. Even the Solomon Islanders are ahead of these people."

The crash boat rolled in the swelling sea. Spray came over the prow. The chaplain's face had completely lost its ruddy appearance. "Keep talkin', Chappy!" Billis called encouragingly from his vantage point on the bridge.

"Interesting man, Billis," the chaplain said wanly. "He took me into the jungle a few weeks ago to see a ceremonial. We may see one today. They're unbelievable. A family raises a pig for nine or ten years. It has value only in the fraction of a minute when you stand over it with the sacred club, ready to kill it. Then everybody says, 'Look at the wonderful pig he is going to kill! He must be a very fine man to kill such a pig!' After the pig is dead and the meat given to friends they say, 'The owner of this pig is a wonderful man. Look at all the meat he gave away to his friends.'" The chaplain laughed as he acted out the speeches. It was like being in a pulpit again. Somewhat shaky, but a pulpit all the same.

"Billis tells me we are going to see a truly sacred pig today," he continued. "One whose tusks have made two complete circles! They have burrowed twice through the pig's face and once through the jawbone. I understand men from other villages come from miles about just to see the holy tusker. The chief is going to kill the pig soon. He must. For if that pig were to die, or if it were to break one of its tusks, he would be a scorned man. Everyone would say, 'He was unwilling to give the holy pig away. Now see! It is nothing. It did him no good! A man with only a little pig is better than the chieftain. For the man with the little pig can give it away!' That's exactly what they'd say."

The crash boat rolled and turned. Fry was making bets with himself that the chaplain would heave before the lee of Vanicoro was reached. But the game little fellow stuck it out. "You're lookin' better Chappy!" irreverent Billis called down from the bridge.

"I feel better!" the chaplain said. The boat was heading for the bay of Bali-ha'i, a tiny island with rocky cliffs facing the sea. "Looks good to see land again," he said.

As soon as the boat was anchored off the white sands of Bali-ha'i, Billis was fighting a rubber dory over the side, giving the coxswain all sorts of help and trouble. Fry, Benoway, and the chaplain climbed in. Billis shoved off and rowed energetically toward Vanicoro across the channel. As soon as the bumpy little boat hit land, Billis took charge of the expedition.

A group of small boys had gathered to greet the Americans. Billis talked with them briefly and selected a lad of ten to lead him to the high country near the volcanoes. Billis and the boy walked in front, followed by Fry. The chaplain and Benoway brought up the rear.

The party traveled through dense jungle, across small streams and up steep hillsides. At the end of the first mile everyone was sweating freely. The little chaplain dripped perspiration from his thumbs. Fry grunted and swore as the stuff ran off his eyebrows. Billis, surprisingly enough, seemed never to tire. Once he passed a native and his Mary. "Hiya, Joe! Whaddaya know?" he called out in breezy fashion.

The grinning native had been across the sea to Espiritu. He called back, "Good duty, boss!"

"So long, Joe!"

A little while later a chief and his three Maries came along the narrow trail. Billis stopped and talked with them briefly in Beche-le-Mer. Then he grinned at the officers. "He says there's a pig killing, all right. Up in the hills."

The narrow trails now became mere threads through the immense jungle. It was difficult to believe that these frail communications had served men and women for more than five hundred years. And they were still the only trails between the hill villages and the sea.

At last the men came to a native village. It was a sight new and strange to Benoway. It was not at all what he had been led to expect. Only by grace of custom could it be called a village. It was more correctly a homestead. Only one family lived there, and they were absent on a visit. Off to a sing-sing somewhere deeper in the jungle. Or maybe to the pig killing higher up the mountainside.

Benoway and the chaplain were tired, so the party rested. The little boy looked on in open disgust while the white men panted and sweated and took off their hot shirts. The kraal in which they had stopped was about forty yards in diameter. Within the fence, made of trees bound together by lianas, not a blade of grass grew. The earth was reddish and packed hard. A few scrawny trees struggled through the earth, all at odd angles from having been bent in youth. Probably the kraal had been there for three hundred years, or more.

Within the circle a collection of huts had grown up. Billis explained their uses. "This one for sleepin'. That one for cookin'. That one for chiefs' sons. That one for the wives. That one reserved for any special pigs. Over there the hut for Maries goin' to give birth. That far one for Maries menstruatin'."

The total effect of the kraal was planned orderliness. It looked almost neat. Benoway commented on this fact to Billis. "Why not?" the latter asked. "They got nothin' else to do!"

The men were breathing more easily now. Throwing their completely wet shirts over their shoulders, they climbed upward toward the hill village where the ceremonial killings were to be held. As they neared that high place, weird screams penetrated the jungle.

"Them's the pigs!" Billis explained. His eyes were dancing with expectation. "Them pigs always seem to know." The absorbent jungle muffled the unearthly screams, and there were no echoes. Even though the ritual was holy, the doomed pigs screamed.

The kraal which the men entered was bigger than the earlier one. It was more pretentious, as befitted a chief who had lived in glory and who had a boar with double-circle tusks. The old man came forward to greet the Americans. He jabbered in some strange language with Billis. There was much solemn shaking of hands.

The chief's long beard hung in two points like a massive W. His face was heavily wrinkled. His teeth were good. Like most natives, he was very thin. He wore a string of shells about his neck. Around his middle he wore a thick belt of palm fronds. In front a woven lap-lap was suspended; behind, a tuft of leaves bobbed up and down. He looked like a rooster when he walked.

In spite of this, he maintained a solemn dignity. He motioned the Americans to a place in the circle of his guests. Seven chiefs were present. Each had brought his sons. In odd corners of the kraal the Maries of the chieftains were gathered, each group on a spot separated from the rest. There was no visiting among the Maries. But children and dogs raced about the huts. They knew a holiday when they saw one.

In the center of the kraal an altar had been built. It consisted simply of a circle of sanctified palm fronds with room for the old chieftain to stand in the center.

Now from a hut other chiefs brought a sacred frond from a tree growing near the edge of the ancient lake high up among the volcanoes. They blessed it as they gave it to their friend. They likewise blessed the heavy, brutal sacrificial club. It was made of ironwood, that unbelievable jungle wood that rusts in water. The old chief grasped the club, waved it in the air, and cried ritualistic phrases.

Blessed by his friends, possessed of the sacred palm frond and the ironwood club, the chief was ready. His six Maries came forward from their recesses along the matted wall. Each led by a jungle rope the boars she had nurtured. If need arose, old men beat the reluctant sacrifices forward. There was infinite screaming. The hot jungle was filled with sound. Relentlessly, with faces unmoved, the women staked their pigs in a semicircle before the altar. Their chief touched each pig with the ceremonial frond.

The Maries then stood silent. They were naked except for a single strand of fiber about their waists and an even thinner strand in front. Old superstition!" Billis whispered. "If she moves that strand aside of her own will, it ain't rape."